Time and Again
by Twisted-Optimism
Summary: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter, revived teenage Zan?
1. Prologue

Summary: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

Disclaimer: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters, settings, or technologies of the TV show (and book series) Roswell. However, if you're an avid fan of the series and see something you _don't_ recognise, that's probably mine.

AN: Hi. It's been a while since I've posted any fanfiction, and to be fair and accurate with my readers, I've never actually finished any. But that's something I'm really trying to change, so please, if you like this story, bear with me. Also, I want to point out that this is just the first chapter of the story, and I'm posting it more to gauge potential interest than to actively start posting. I've gotten a couple of chapters written, but I don't want to start posting until the story's almost finished.

So if you're interested in reading more, please review. :)

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><p>Liz had never been a gambler, but if there was ever a time to be lucky, this was it.<p>

Liz shook her head and fisted her hands against their shaking. The petit brunette closed her eyes, trying to muster up a shred of calm. There was no question in her mind it was only an illusion; despite the quiet atmosphere and the stillness of the room, she couldn't be _less _calm. What she was about to do would make the most morphine-addled dental patient nervous.

_What you're _about_ to do?_ Liz scoffed. _Don't fool yourself, Parker; you've been planning this for years. There's nothing new about any of this. _

_Way too late to be getting cold feet now, and you know it._

But despite theself assurance, Liz still felt incredibly unsteady. This feeling wasn't actually cold feet - not _really_ - and she'd only used that phrase to try and trivialize this nerve-wracking experience. This moment… _this_ was the culmination of everything she'd worked for since she'd turned twenty-three. This was the point _before_ the point of no return. She felt like she was standing on the edge of a cliff looking down, and she had nothing but faith to insure that that first step into the chasm wouldn't end in oblivion.

Liz took a deep breath.

She'd changed in fourteen years, obviously. There's not much that doesn't change in almost a decade and a half. But it was more than just time; the things that had happened – the things she had been through… She wasn't anything like the girl she was at seventeen. That girl had been a romantic; self-assured and completely caught up in the moment. The teenage Liz had never fired a gun, lost a loved one, or killed someone. In fact, that girl would probably have been devastated by any of those three things, but the thirty-one year old Liz… she'd done all of that, and most of them more than once.

Liz didn't regret it either; she'd had no other choice. Of course, that was just one more thing the younger her would never have understood, or have cared to understand. Back then, she'd been just a normal teenage girl who met the love of her life and decided to give it everything she had. And now, Liz was a woman who'd _lost _the love of her life, and a million other things beside, and who would sacrifice everything to _get it back. _

She didn't envy her younger self, though. How could she? Liz had been a naive little girl who'd been completely blindsided by everything that'd happened – she'd never had a clue just how bad it would all get. How could she ever envy a girl who was so blissfully happy when the destruction of her world waited for her just around the corner?

Liz opened her eyes to the inside of the Boston warehouse she'd been living in for the past three years, and her gaze automatically locked on the gigantic piece of machinery that dominated the room. Monstrous and deceptively still, it served as the only tangible result of half her life's work.

It didn't look like much. In fact, it looked like the bastard child of a mechanics nightmare and the entire _genre_ of science-fiction; not surprising, considering it was one desperate woman's attempt to fuse human and alien technology. Wires stuck out in places, the surface was a patchwork of different metals, the stairs up to the machine were actually made of _wood_, and the strange crystals and symbols of Antar littered the surface like oddly linear graffiti. It was a slightly tilted platform surrounded by giant metal rings, and if looked at just right, it almost looked like the spread out insides of a clock. The whole thing was nearly forty feet tall – just shy of hitting the warehouse's ceiling.

Liz had gotten lucky; she'd made friends with a Skin named Serena early on in the war, and the woman had been kind enough to teach Liz everything she knew about Antarian technology. Of course, that hadn't been anywhere near enough information to do what Liz'd been planning – she'd had to track down several leading physicists and a few gifted Antarian engineers before she'd collected everything she'd needed, and even then… even then it was like trying to create cold fusion; completely workable in theory, but almost impossible to actually _do_.

If this didn't work…

Liz sighed.

_If this doesn't work, I'll be dead anyway. _

Liz remembered what Future-Max had told her about the end of the world, back when that thought had seemed impossible. She remembered that she'd actually _believed_ – the way she'd assumed Max believed – that the future would go just as he'd told her it would once Tess became a part of the group. It had never occurred to her back then that for Max, this wasn't anything like a guarantee. But he'd been willing to _pretend_ like it was, in order to get her compliance – because he'd thought that his plan had to change _something_.

Max'd believed any future had to be better than his.

Liz smiled bitterly.

It hadn't been, of course.

Government agents had ambushed them outside of Utah when Liz was nineteen, and they'd almost managed to kill her. Max had healed her, but she'd been so close to death that the next round of cellular restructuring had left her sick and starting fires for weeks. When she'd come out of it, she'd gotten a major power boost, but her abilities were so twitchy that she'd spent almost all of her time a few minutes ahead of everybody else. At least until she's learned how to 'block her inner eye' and hold back the prophetic visions.

It also meant that, although Liz's visions let her be an early warning system, she was completely useless in a fight. She'd dodge a hit too early, and they'd just change direction on her, or she'd move to strike an opening that hadn't been created yet. For a while, Liz had been a major disadvantage to the group. Again, this little setback lasted only a few months, right up until Liz boxed up that particular ability – and, unfortunately, much of her power along with it – and promised herself that she'd never use it again.

This brush with death soon sparked several personal developments. Maria and Michael got married, Kyle and Isabelle grew closer, and Liz got pregnant. Liz eventually decided she was going to keep the baby, despite the many hardships they were facing. Max supported her decision, although a lot more cautiously. In the end, it didn't matter what either of them wanted, though; the decision would be taken from them.

Kivar's servants had been looking for them, and one of his Skins spotted Liz and Max at a store. Although he'd gotten the news earlier, he waited till the night that he planned to invade Earth before he sent soldiers after the six of them.

Michael lost his right arm up to the elbow, and neither Maria nor the baby survived.

After that, Michael completely lost himself to his grief and rage; he wanted more than anything to go on the offensive, to _hurt_ the people who'd taken away the biggest piece of his new family. Liz – whose furious guilt quickly became a permanent emotional state – agreed, and she too pushed for war. Max was still uncomfortable with his position as King and was reluctant to say anything definitive.

Isabelle and Kyle had been reluctant too, at first, but Liz had given a rather convincing speech about Kivar's ultimate goals – the biggest of which was the complete annihilation of the Royal Four. And with how easily he found them this time, could they afford to try and hide again? Could they afford _not_ to go on the offensive? After a long debate, she'd gotten their agreement.

They were going to fight back.

Some governments surrendered pretty quickly, while others fell shortly after that to the overwhelming force Kivar had at his beck-and-call. It wasn't long before Kivar had complete control over Earth – technically. Most people still refused to follow him, though, and before long the Roswell gang had had a huge group of rebels ready to back them up.

Honestly, for an army comprised of six teenagers, some refugees from the Whirlwind Galaxies, and a bunch of humans completely unprepared for alien invasion, they'd held off Kivar's forces for a surprising amount of time. Almost four years in, the odds looked to favor humankind.

Then a lucky Skin shot Max in the back of the head, and everything changed.

Before she could fight her way through, Kivar's exultant forces had carried away Max's corpse, and the horrified Rebels fled – forcing Liz out along with them. Liz had felt him die, but she still remembered Clayton and Max's miraculous revival seven years before. Unfortunately, this was not the same thing; Max hadn't simply forced all of his healing energy into another being, where it could regenerate his physical self – his physical self had been killed without any previous 'storage'. It was something like the difference between 'cloning' your laptop and then beating the crap out of it with a baseball bat, and just plain beating it with a baseball bat.

Max hadn't left behind enough of his energy to come back.

After months without feeling his revival, Liz had had to come to terms with that. But that instant, when she'd watched them take Max's body away, she'd felt something – a sort of sudden, shocking certainty. Instinctively, Liz _knew_ they were going to lose, and so that was when she began her first serious work on an idea she'd toyed with since Maria and her baby had died.

Max's death killed the confidence of their Antarian supporters, and in less than a year the tides had completely reversed. Kivar's forces swept over the planet, enforcing terrifying new security measures to keep his captive societies 'in line' with his regime, and the Rebellion found it harder and harder to continue with their guerilla warfare. They simply did not have enough supporters in high places to get the resources they needed past the system. The best of them learned to get around it, but… the Rebellion as a whole still fell short.

By this point, the only survivors of the original group were Liz, Isabelle, and Michael, but they'd been joined by Ava, Serena, and a number of other exceptional people. Isabelle eventually – in a rather kamikaze gesture she'd had to spend months talking Michael into – surrendered herself to Kivar, where she played an influential but deadly game as a spy, stealing information and passing it on to the Rebellion. Michael went underground, recruiting fighters and using his old name like a taunt against Kivar's new monarchy. He happily played the gingerbread man for just over a year.

At which point Kivar caught Isabelle stealing information, and had her executed.

Publically.

Michael couldn't take the loss. It was just one more thing he considered his failure, just one more loved one he'd disappointed, let slip between his fingers, leaving him behind...

He took a big chunk of the remaining Rebels and set off to storm the fortress. His forces managed to push their way almost to Kivar, and then Michael launched a truck-load of Antarian fission grenades into the fray, taking out half a city block. But despite the healing power he'd inherited from Max's death, Michael was not immortal. He died in the explosion.

That attack is remembered as the closest Kivar ever got to actually being defeated. It took a week and all of the most advanced medical technology in the universe to save him.

But he _did_ survive. And eventually, it was as if he'd never been hurt at all.

Kyle, who was by now completely different from the gentle soul he'd been back in high school, stepped up to fill Michael's shoes as leader of the Rebellion. He'd been good at his job, but that alone would not have been enough to save their cause – the sudden dip in morale when it got out that Kivar had survived the attack cost them too many of their supporters. But then one day he was approached by a woman and her nine year old son, who begged him for protection.

And the nine year old son was a dark haired, dark eyed boy named Zan.

When people heard that the Rebellion was sheltering the child of Max Evans – the son of the True King of Antar – the sudden surge of new blood returned hope to the Rebellion. For the first time in a long, long time, it seemed like they might stand a chance.

But Liz knew better.

Liz wasn't sure why, but she was still felt the same sinking, terrifying certainty that they'd already lost. It had felt like a vision, in a way – this sick abyss deep in her stomach, and a vague, haunting pressure in the back of her mind. Despite everyone's assurances, despite all of Kyle's talk about the bright future… Liz knew.

Eight years later, when the sharp edge of Max's death had long since worn away, when she should have been long past the silly sentimentality that came along with strong emotions, when she'd stopped feeling that desperate grief, that still hadn't changed. At thirty one, Liz had no doubts whatsoever that whatever train they were supposed to have caught, whatever path they were meant to have taken… they'd missed it. They'd lost their chance.

But Liz had a back-up plan.

Liz herself hadn't played an active part in the fight since Max died – not even when Michael had lead his last great attack. Sure, she'd smuggled black market weaponry, passed along information, and protected the occasional refugee, but actual fighting for the cause? No. She'd been too busy gathering information about her impossible idea.

She got even less involved after Michael and Isabelle died, and she dropped off the radar entirely after Kyle started grooming Zan to be the next King. She and Kyle had had the biggest argument in her memory over the issue; he told her measures needed to be taken, that human kind was _losing_ God damn it and this kid might be their last remaining advantage. And Liz had told him that Max would never have allowed it, that a world that used children to fight wars was not a world worth saving.

Liz'd tried to convince Zan's mother of that, but the woman had been completely destroyed by her husband's murder, and she'd been willing to do anything for protection against Kivar. She'd closed her eyes and ears to Liz, and even though it broke her heart, Liz knew she couldn't take the boy – he was already completely in love with the idea of being King, and her plans were too important to risk that he might respond badly. If she took him with her and he fought her, he'd draw attention.

And Liz could not afford to bring eyes to her machine.

So she'd left him there, and reminded herself daily that if her plan worked, little Zan would be one of the millions of people who'd benefit from it. She'd save him, and he'd never remember that his adopted father had ever died in the first place.

Liz sighed shakily as she stared at the machine.

If she could pull this off… maybe the world would be worth saving again.

Max had said it had to be 'surgical'. He'd come back to change one singular event, believing that any more interference would cause more damage than it'd heal. But obviously there was a bigger problem than Max had ever guessed at; despite all his precision, the world had still gone to hell the second time around.

At some point, Liz had started reminding herself that not all surgeries were small. Sometimes, if the damage was already extensive, if the cancer had already spread too far for any small operation to completely remove, much more would have to be done. And Liz… Liz had an idea of what needed to be fixed – what had gone wrong that needed to go right –if anyone had been around who knew how to do it.

And if Max could find a way to go back, to _be _that person… then so could she.

Of course, they no longer had the Granolith. That could only be used the one time, and Tess had used it on her unexpectedly useless journey home. Still, Liz refused to believe that that was the _only possible way_ to travel through time; if the technology existed, then it could also be replicated. But she first needed to understand Antarian tech; she needed to understand what she was doing, and to do that, she needed to spend a lot of time tracking down the necessary information.

It took her years to realize how much more complicated it really was.

The Granolith was not _just_ a machine – it was an artifact created during the one of the darker historical periods of Antar. Back then, the government was made up of the strongest and most ruthless beings on the planet, and they had obsessively hoarded all forms of knowledge. When the Red Prince defeated Emperor Hyn, his Priests had immediately destroyed everything that could increase their enemies understanding of the universe. This included all experimental technology, thousands of libraries and museums, and almost a hundred thousand scientists employed by the government. This final, bitter attack of a dying regime would set Antar back a full millennia.

The Granolith was one of the few artifacts to survive that massive destruction, and the actual means of creating it had not yet been rediscovered. Of course, with a little searching, Liz found out that that was not actually because the Granolith was such an advanced piece of technology (although that certainly added to the difficulty), but rather because the Red Prince's line had used it as symbol of their power. Any efforts to recreate the machine were met with swift and vicious reprisal, and because this had been practiced for several centuries, it eventually became instinctive for Antarian scientists to avoid that area of study.

Of course, when King Zan came into power, that practice – and a hundred others – was changed, but he'd still been a young man when he was overthrown, and he hadn't had enough time to get anywhere substantial. And then, of course, he was killed, and his followers had sent the Granolith along with his clones to Earth for safe keeping, which meant no one had had the chance to study it in more than fifty years.

Subsequently, there was no instruction manual to build another Granolith, so Liz not only had to learn everything she could about alien technology, but she'd had to quickly familiarize herself with alien history and all temporal theories, both human and Antarian, _and_ track down any possible records of the Granolith (such as pictures or detailed descriptions), which might help her to understand how it worked.

She'd needed six years – ignoring the four between her baby's death and her husband's, during which she'd only tinkered with the idea – and a lot of help from several of the biggest experts in those fields (some of which Liz had to use alias's to see, since that those individuals supported Kivar) before she'd been able to get a solid idea of what she was doing. Even then, it had taken her two years and about a thousand mistakes to finish her project. The same grief-stricken rage she'd used to fuel her search for Alex's killer had kept her focused; that's how she'd finished in eight short years a project that should have taken decades.

Well, _that_, and she couldn't afford to waste time testing it out – the amount of energy one test would take would have Kivar's street police on her ass in a heartbeat. Which meant that not only would she be risking her life on the hope that her theories were all sound, she'd also be risking it on not having made even _one single mistake_ when she'd built the machine.

_But after all this time, all this _planning_ – _

The sudden flash of crimson light caught her off guard, and Liz turned to glance at the silent red siren on the table.

The perimeter had been breached. Liz snorted.

"Right on time." Liz muttered and ran to the nearest computer. She pulled up the appropriate program, entered the password, and ran like hell to grab her coat and bag before the monstrous rings could being to spin. As she climbed up onto the platform, she turned breathlessly toward the back doors into the warehouse.

The doors they'd use when they came for her.

Liz smiled toothily, and for the first time in ten years, she felt almost human again.

"Ready or not, assholes."

* * *

><p>Kivar had never made any secret about his policies. Thus, it was common knowledge that he had a group of hand-picked soldiers known only to him, trained specifically for jobs like torture and assassination. Of course, this was nothing his usual enforcers couldn't do, but these men weren't trained for handling just any criminal. These men were trained specifically to target special enemies of Kivar.<p>

These were the men he sent after Liz Parker when he finally got confirmation of her whereabouts. Unlike other annoying key Rebellion leaders, Liz Parker had dodged almost completely under the radar after he'd dealt with Rath and Vilandra. He'd been worried at first; he'd spent long enough fighting the woman to know her usual reaction to grief was always some vicious form of counter-attack. It was nothing he couldn't handle, of course – she _was_, after all, only human – but everything he knew about Parker told him she wouldn't let this new injury go unavenged.

Except… that's exactly what she'd done.

Years had passed with only the occasional confusing lead. He'd almost caught her in Cairo, and the only intel he'd gained was that she was interested in the mechanics of Antarian navigational systems. Another time, he'd connected her to the alias Beth Larienne, which had led him to a subservient old professor who specialized in complex dimensional dynamics. The old man had told him he'd just missed the 'dear girl', that she'd interned with him for a month and had shown herself to be both driven and intelligent.

In those early years, Kivar had found one odd and confusing lead after another. The only common factor he could find was that Parker was always studying something, be it higher order mathematics, various schools of engineering, or even Antarian Political History. He'd eventually come to the conclusion that Parker was trying to collect a variety of information in unrelated fields of study – perhaps in hopes of teaching Zan's pathetic offspring?

Shortly after that, he got another hit on Beth Larienne, and one of his agents had almost managed to kill her, before those damn Rebels had shown up and spirited her away again.

Ever since then, she'd gotten much, _much_ more careful with her aliases. Someone even taught her to avoid the SkyWatch camera's – and if Kivar every figured out who _that_ was, they'd be lucky to spend the rest of their life under his… _tender_ care. There'd been no leads at all in almost three years. Kivar had grudgingly accepted that barring a bit of good luck or an uncharacteristic mistake on Parker's part, he may never again get a shot at killing her. She'd simply spent too much time learning how to stay unnoticed.

And then one of his spies had reported that she'd made herself at home in Boston, and wasn't showing any sign of running.

Which meant she probably had no idea he'd found her yet.

Kivar had made it his goal a lifetime ago to insure that no remnants of the Royal Four survived to give him problems, and he'd recently made it his hobby to kill off anyone who'd sided with them in the past. Parker had been at the top of that list since the beginning, but she'd also been one of the hardest to kill. To Kivar, the idea of finally getting rid of her seemed almost a resolution – closure to an era that should have long since passed. Kivar wouldn't miss this chance.

The fact that he'd gotten this information _now_, on the eve of his greatest triumph…

Kivar felt the odd, living Husk he wore over his face stretch into a human smile, and for the first time since he'd come to this wretched planet, he was not disgusted by the feeling.

Tonight, Parker would die.

Right alongside her precious Resistance.

* * *

><p>The seven black clad Skins of Kivar's Red Hand circled the warehouse. They'd all been briefed on the intel gathered about Elizabeth Parker. This included her usual tactics, her allies – apparently there weren't many – her skill set, her odd, not-quite-Antarian abilities (which included precognition, of all things), and her psych profile.<p>

It was probably overkill to be so careful with the simple execution of a retired Rebellion leader, but apparently Kivar had a personal vendetta against Parker and didn't want them taking any chances. For the vast majority of the Red Hand, that was more explanation then they required; they would follow Kivar's orders till death and beyond without question or hesitation. They were the Red Hand, the elite of the elite, and Kivar stood as a god in their eyes.

Alamar, the leader of this particular unit, was not quite like his men. Of course, he would also follow every order, and he'd never question Kivar aloud, but unlike others of the Red Hand, he _did_ have doubts. Alamar believed this may have had something to do with his own natural ability to defend against mental compulsion, which suggested that it was not necessarily genuine loyalty that drove his peers.

Still, Alamar always pushed that thought quickly aside. There was something in his mind – the same odd, silent voice that told him something _was not right _– that wondered if he was truly alone even inside his own head. That voice could sense eyes watching, and ears that were not his listening, and it knew that to start questioning now would lead to something terrible.

Almost before that image had formed, he pushed it away.

_I do this of my own free will_. He told himself. _For my beloved King, Kivar. _

Alamar signaled silently for his people to converge on the door. He went first – as was the custom and general expectation of an Antarian leader's place on the battlefield – and he quickly felt his heart begin to pound against his ribcage. The adrenaline rush was one of the few perks of this job, and he felt his lips start to stretch into a grin behind his mask.

As soon as he reached the door he held up his hand and sent a pulse of energy toward it. The door was made of old, rotting wood, and it instantly exploded in a shower of shards and sawdust. Alamar ran inside and sought cover, his men following immediately after with the smooth, quick ease of experience.

Alamar quickly glanced around, taking in his surroundings and cataloging the interior to memorize the layout and look for potential exits (they had already determined that there were no viable entry points visible from the outside). There were boxes everywhere – clustered against the wall, built up like pyramids and tables… The only place free of them was a large open area directly in the middle of the warehouse, where an assortment of tables and computers were laid out at the foot of something… big.

This was all noted and accepted at a glance, and Alamar and his men moved in quickly for the kill.

Elizabeth Parker was standing in the middle of a giant machine. Obviously the switch had been flipped 'on', because the rings that circled it were spinning faster and faster even as he watched. For a moment he felt a little tickle of dread along his spine, but unease led to suspicion, which led to doubt. He ignored the feeling.

_Do not question. _

_Do not hesitate. _

_We are King Kivar's Red Hand, and we pass his judgment on the enemy._

_We will obey his wishes._

Alamar winced but accepted the conditioning. There was a very real chance that any extremely insubordinate thought would earn him a Wipe, and maybe even termination (of the permanent kind). He could not afford to think freely; no one in the Red Hand could.

_Do not question. _

_Do not hesitate. _

His men circled the platform and raised their hands to the ready. Alamar felt that trickle of unease again – she'd definitely seen them, but she wasn't reacting in any way. Had she known they were coming? Was this… some kind of trap?

_Do not hesitate. _

Alamar pushed the doubt away and prepared to send another pulse into that fragile human body. He reached for the energy he needed, focused on his ultimate goal, pictured – for a moment very visibly – the exact point on her stomach he was aiming for, and.. .

Nothing.

Alamar frowned and tried again, but it wasn't working; he could feel the energy inside him, but it wasn't… it wasn't responding the way it should. Alamar glanced around and noticed that most of his men were in various states of growing frustration – a few were staring at their hands, and one determined boy was frowning harshly, face growing red as he shoved his palm forward time and time again.

A sudden intuition brought his eyes back to the machine, and Alamar remembered a comment one of his trainers had made years before.

"_Be careful around human machines. Most of them're harmless, but the wrong kind of electrical field can literally _cancel out_ the signals your brain sends out to manipulate your environment. Antarian machines are required to pass certain inspections, and those inspections will check for this particular field, so you're safe here. But when Kivar invades Earth, you'll have to keep an eye out for things like this."_

Alamar watched the rings spin faster and faster, fascination blooming in his mind.

"Bullshit…" He murmered, but the odd whir of the machine meant he could not be heard beyond a few feet away.

He could still see Parker though the blur of spinning rings, and while he'd been realizing the implications, she'd caught the expression on his face. Alamar met her gaze, and the bitch actually _smiled_ at him.

She said something then, and if Alamar hadn't had some minor skill in reading lips he might not have understood–

"Boom." Alamar's eyes widened. He turned quickly, looking for any explosive devices, but by the time his eyes landed on the computer to his left, it was already too late.

_Loading complete. _

_Project: Do-Over initiated. _

Alamar had just enough time to think, _Oh, thank God… _

And then the world went white.

* * *

><p>At the same time Liz Parker was gearing up her machine, sewers and safe houses all around the planet were being suddenly swarmed with soldiers loyal to Kivar. In the smaller units, some people were simply arrested and beaten. In more hectic, crowded ones, the Rebels took up their weapons and fought back. The soldiers killed them all.<p>

Kyle Valenti looked up from his desk to see Kivar himself stroll into the room. Kyle got to his feet and looked the devil in the eye, smirking unrepentantly. He didn't show the fear wiggling in the back of his head, or the worry for his subordinates, or even his snarling urge to reach out and wrap his hands around his enemy's neck.

This... this _animal_ who'd had his dad murdered.

Kivar smiled. "Well, well. If it isn't Kyle Valenti, the failed Rebellion leader. _So_ nice to make your acquaintance."

"Well, well." Kyle mocked, grinning despite the insult. "If it isn't the infamous false King of Antar! Wish I could say it was a pleasure, but honestly I've never been that good of a liar."

Kivar's smile had slipped just a little at the king comment, but at the end what was left of his expression was more than a little acidic. "That's funny. You're a very funny man, Valenti. I think you missed your calling." He reached up and gestured over his shoulder to his men, and one of the soldiers stepped out of the way of the door. As soon as he did, another soldier stepped inside the room, dragging the bound form of a terrified little boy.

Kyle slowly closed his eyes; hope slipping gently into death. He'd sent his best soldiers off with Zan. He would not be here if they were still breathing.

And if _they _were dead...

Briefly, Kyle thought back to that moment all those years ago when Max had died. Michael had taken over. Isabelle had become a spy. Kyle had had to learn to be second in command. And somehow, without even realizing it, they lost Liz to an altogether different cause.

She'd just drifted off. She'd lost interest in everything and everyone; she'd seemed to exist purely within her own mind. Kyle spent a long time thinking that she'd just... broken. When he'd finally gotten the guts to tell Michael about his worries, he'd just stared at Kyle for a minute, looking pensive. Then he'd told Kyle about Liz's little 'idea' – go back to the past, change the future, save Max…

Of course, Kyle figured she'd lost her mind. But Michael just smiled and went back to what he was doing, some secret practically glittering in his eyes. Mike had believed in Liz, no matter how crazy she'd sounded. No matter how angry Kyle had been at her for giving up on the real world.

He'd been so sure they could still win.

"Shit." He muttered. Kivar laughed.

"You're going to die, you know." He finally said as he laid a gentle hand on Zan's head. The boys eyes glazed over, and he stopped fighting. It was odd to see that feisty, _angry_ little kid standing so still. Even _with_ ropes binding his arms and legs and duct-tape covering his mouth...

_Double shit_.

"I'm going to have the both of you executed in front of whatever pathetic little remnants of your Rebellion survive the night." Kivar stepped forward, looking Kyle directly in the eye. Kyle looked back, past the pretty face and the charming smile, and caught a glimpse of the obsession underneath. In that instant, Kivar looked every inch the megalomaniac they all knew him to be. "They're going to watch as the two of you bleed to death, right there in –"

"Oh, shut _up_, you raging dick." Kyle finally snarled. "We get it already! Doom and gloom, you can't win, join the darkside – what_ever_. You really think you're impressing anybody with your threats, Kivar? We already _know_ what you do to people who fight you."

Kyle remembered Iz twitching, strapped down to a chair in the middle of Time Square, blue energy crackling from Kivar's hands to her head...

Kyle felt his throat constrict and his hands fist.

Kivar sneered, amusement still evident on his face, but now tempered with annoyance. To Kyle, this was a major improvement. "Oh? So why is it you still fight me, _Kyle_? I suppose it's because your little Rebels are so very brave. Noble, stubborn, _brainless_ little warriors, fighting off the evil King?"

"No." Kyle laughed. "I mean, sure, we may be all of those things, but that's not why we fight you."

"It's not?" Kivar tilted his head, looking both condescending and unconcerned. Kyle put his hands in his jacket pockets and fingered the little metal tube inside. He'd watched the monitors. He'd seen his people fall. He'd watched the little lights go out on the map on the wall, each one a mark of a safe-house found and destroyed. Obviously, they'd been betrayed - someone trusted had given Kivar all he'd needed to destroy them.

After tonight, there would be no more Rebellion.

But he still had tonight.

Kyle smiled and gripped the tube, his thumb finding the button on the top.

"Nope. We fight for two reasons. One being that… well, we hate you. " Kyle started after a pause, stepping around the desk and ignoring the sudden lifting of palms from Kivar's jumpy gaurds. He looked briefly at Zan and almost let himself give in to the twinge of remorse before the image of Isabelle's face twisted in agony flashed through his mind, hardening his heart. He slowly pulled his hand out of his pocket and held up the little cylindrical detonator.

That same hard heart swelled with glee as he watched Kivar's smile suddenly disappear. "And two… because we're really not afraid to die."

Kyle started to push down, and Kivars gaurds started to pull their King out the door. Kyle glanced toward the dazed little boy still standing in the room, forgotten by Kivar's soldiers... Looking back at him.

_Good luck, Liz_.

The button clicked into place, and the facility went up in flames.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry it's so long, guys, but a lot had to happen before the rest of the story could start moving. Anyway, if you like it, tell me, and if you don't, tell me what you think needs to change. I love constructive criticism, so don't be afraid to tell me what you really think.<p>

P.S. I should hopefully update by the end of the month. June, that is.


	2. Chapter 1: Back Again

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: I actually updated this _a lot _sooner than I expected to for two reasons; one, some people seem to actually like it, and two, I've got a question I want to ask you all. What do you want the relationship between Zan and Liz to be? I've got my own ideas, but if, after reading this chapter, you make a persuasive argument, I still have room to mess with it.

This time, it really _will _be a little while till by next update. Maybe as much as a month.

… Probably. :)

Review!

* * *

><p>Liz was surprised at how painless time travel was.<p>

Oh, it wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't really painful either; it was more… disturbingly odd. It felt like every little hair was vibrating, massaging the follicles from the inside, charging her skin with static. It messed with her vision and hearing and touch – she saw black in a spectrum, she heard colors and felt things from the inside-out. Her hair stood on end, and she tasted something like ozone on the back of her tongue.

It was over almost immediately, but the odd way the whole thing had affected her nerves left her completely boneless on landing. Before she'd even registered the sudden shift back into real time, she was falling to her knees. Shortly after that, gravity shoved her face into the cement, and the pain of her throbbing knees and skinned cheek helped her regain her balance.

Liz rolled to her side, feeling her backpack compress a little underneath her, and brought her hand up to cradle her face. For a long moment she just lay there, taking deep breaths to nurse the pain and fight back the sudden swell of nausea.

Slowly she became aware of the sounds of heavy traffic and crowds, and with that came the sudden realization that she was _alive_. She'd gotten into an untested, theoretical, Frankenstein machine, flipped it on and thrown herself at God's mercy… and she'd _survived_!

A little giddy and still in pain, Liz cracked open an eye, trying to hold back a moan as the light made her head throb. She was… in the warehouse, still. Between two walls of crates, lined up pretty much the way she remembered them being lined up when she'd first started living here. But there was also _life_ outside this warehouse, and that was most definitely _not_ how she remembered it.

To hear people this close…

Granted, there weren't many people around here even back th-…. Even_ now_. But she could hear a few men in the distance talking to each other, and as she listened one broke out into loud, boisterous laughter – the kind you never heard from the few people still living in occupied Boston. Beyond them she could hear traffic – which was just as strange, considering Kivar had replaced most of Earth's technologies with Antarian ones – and the faint whir of a power plant. There was even a distinct smell of humanity; food and sweat and car exhaust. Liz hadn't smelled that smell in… God, _so long._

Liz pushed herself up to her feet, so enchanted by this odd, subtle new experience that for a moment she forgot the pain still radiating out from her knees and cheek. She eased her way toward a window, being very careful to remain unseen as she looked through it.

That first glimpse stole her breath away.

She'd hoped for this, _planned _for this, but actually _seeing_ it…

When Kivar had said he would have no mercy on any community that resisted, he hadn't lied. He didn't just beat Boston – he'd _decimated_ it. The last time she'd looked across that river, all she'd been able to see on the other side was rubble and the steal bones of sky scrapers. But now…

Liz felt tears well up in her eyes as she stared at a city made whole and saw all the promise it symbolized. They were all alive – everybody she'd ever cared about, everybody she'd ever even _met _– and if she could just_ keep them safe_…

"This time, I won't let you get hurt," she whispered, her throat twisting and tears pouring down her cheeks. She wasn't even particularly sure which 'you' she was referring to – maybe Max, maybe Maria and Michael, Iz, her baby... maybe even that seventeen year old version of herself. She lifted a hand and gently caressed the image of the city through the glass.

Liz smiled and blinked away the tears. For the first time in forever, she felt… _light_. Hopeful.

Free.

"This is my chance to make things right." She whispered. One slight, calloused finger reached up to trace the shape of a building out her window. Liz leaned her forehead against the cool glass and caught a phantom glimpse of her reflection. She watched it grin, looking younger than she had in years.

_It's a brand new day_. Liz blinked, then snorted. _Oh, wow. _

_Ironic, much?_

* * *

><p>First Liz had to get a hold of a taxi. Not difficult, considering. Still, it took five hours and almost six hundred bucks to get to New York, taking into account several taxi changes to make it difficult for anybody to figure out exactly where she was going. Granted, it was <em>extremely <em>unlikely anybody had noticed anything strange about her yet, so she seriously doubted those measures were necessary. But despite being back on a human run planet Earth, some habits were simply too ingrained to be that easily forgotten.

Still, somehow… Even after hours in the car, she never got tired of looking out the window.

It was weird to acknowledge it even to herself, but it wasn't the beautiful things that kept her enchanted. It wasn't the shops or the greenery or the architecture – no, none of that was all that interesting to a girl who'd seen cities where holographic images looked down on you from above and trains ran at almost sonic speeds through the sky. There were even greenhouses in some of the more kiss-ass cities that had simulated a genuine Antarian atmosphere.

Liz had only gone into one, and the vivid plant life had been mind-numbingly beautiful.

In fact, beauty was one of the first things Liz had come to recognize as a _bad sign_. Kivar had used that as his only non-violent political campaign. Sort of a 'you broke it, I'll fix it' thing: he'd put scrubbers in the atmosphere and the ocean to clean up pollution, he'd fixed up old neighborhoods, hidden the industrial eye-sores…

Of course, he'd also made actual laws about how many people could be in any group, and what you could do in public, and how much the government could do to make sure you followed his rules. There were cameras in every home, over every street corner, floating around in the sky… Phones were tapped, private transport was tracked, and people were required – on threat of death – to report any subversive behavior in their peers. Kivar's police needed no explanation, warning, or just cause to arrest and indefinitely hold a human.

Frankly, the only places he _hadn't _fixed up had been places like Boston (seeing as he'd wanted a visible reminder of what he could do to people who stood against him), which made them some of the safest places on the planet for a Rebel to hide.

So what captivated Liz on that drive wasn't so much what was beautiful, as what was… uncontrolled. What was _human. _The swell of people, the pollution, the sounds of thousands of voices ringing out through the street – it was all part of a city's careless clutter. She couldn't stop staring at the couples making out on corners, the people arguing… The one time they'd passed a public protest, she'd had to fight to keep herself from jumping out of the moving taxi to go join them.

Doubtlessly that particular driver thought she was crazy.

Liz didn't care though. It was fine to be crazy, here – in this time, in this place, you couldn't be condemned for being annoying, or for acting strangely, or for disagreeing with people. You wouldn't simply 'disappear' if you criticized someone's political policies, and making a public stand didn't guarantee that you'd go home to a brutally murdered family.

People were _free_ here. The way they'd always been in her early memories. She'd never really taken the time to appreciate it then, but now… It was amazing just to see people being themselves again.

Finally, during the last taxi ride, Liz relaxed and leaned back into the seat. Propped against the door and with a remade, human world flashing past her window, she fell into a deep, healing slumber.

* * *

><p>"Hey! Lady!"<p>

Liz jerked awake, blinking and looking quickly from side to side. Checking to see if the coast was clear. "Look, we're here now. You gonna pay up and get the fuck out, or do you want me to go someplace else now?"

Liz looked up into the irritated face of her most recent cab driver and almost smiled. Too many people knew her face in the future – she'd had to get a Skin to change her face before she could even pretend to be anybody else – and it had been a very long time since any one had tried to intimidate her. Strangely, the cabby getting glaring at her from the review mirror was actually… almost endearing.

Liz mentally rolled her eyes.

Figures she'd still be giddy from the whole near death-experience thing.

"Uh – no," Liz smiled the sweet, butter-wouldn't-melt smile of her youth, the one she'd used as a teenager to get just about anything she wanted from a guy. It boosted her confidence a little to see some of his irritation fade; she might be a few years older now, but at least she hadn't lost all her girlish charm. "This is good. How much do I owe you?"

He told her and Liz reached into her backpack to the very bottom where she'd stashed almost thirty thousand in cash, and pulled out seven hundreds. She passed it over and watched his eyebrows jump a little, but he didn't say anything as she grabbed her bag and opened up her door. She stopped briefly before she got out and turned back, as if suddenly remembering something.

"Oh. Uhm… do you know a good taxi company around here? In a couple days I've gotta head for Maine, and since you're not located up here, I figured maybe you could point me in the right direction…?"

His face softened a little as he gave her directions, and Liz pretended like she was really paying attention. Of course, she wasn't going to Maine, but he didn't need to know that. And now, on the off chance she was wrong about not being followed (which, really, how would that happen?), there was a chance they'd ask the cabby and assume this was just another stop on a rather convoluted road trip.

She smiled again and thanked him profusely as she got out of the car, but when he'd gotten a sufficient distance away she turned to head toward the nearest bank.

* * *

><p>Liz had been preparing for this trip for a while, and it made sense that she'd spent a long time making sure she had everything she'd need for her little trip to the past. That's why a tattered green army backpack had sat at the bottom of the platform for months before her departure, and Liz knew without looking exactly what it contained.<p>

Several Antarian journals, filled to the brim with her own shaky handwriting.

Five thumb drives.

A gun with additional amo.

Several false ID's with matching social security cards and birth certificates.

A thermal blanket and first aid kit.

Thirty thousand dollars.

And lastly, buried at the bottom of the bag were two incredibly high tech Antarian devices Liz had had to use every one of her connections in the Rebellion to get a hold of. It didn't help that they were literally top of the line even fourteen years in the future – Kivar himself probably only had a dozen of the TPD disks. Still, it'd been worth it; there was no way she would have been able to pull off the final stages of her plan without them.

Liz had several things she had to do to set herself up here in the past in order to be prepared for… well, for everything _else_ she had to do. The first of which was to set up a life for herself; she desperately needed to blend in, because without it she wouldn't be able to. That kind of attention could kill all her plans before they even got rolling.

This 'life' would need a bank account, a job, and a _very specific_ place to sleep.

At the bank, Liz got her account set up, deposited a chunk of her cash and bought a safety deposit box for her things. She would have tried to mess with the molecules and make them 'blend in' a bit better, but what was easy for Max, Iz and Michael wasn't easy for her. She could have done it with a little time and a lot of effort, but chances that she'd be able to drag herself out of the bank without passing out were slim.

In order to get a job, there were several things Liz had to get done first. Such as getting a cell phone so she'd have a usable contact number and getting a place to stay so she could fill in an address. Despite all that, finding a job would still be incredibly difficult, considering she didn't have a single reference to help her out.

Still, if she went to enough places – specifically, crappy restaurants or little shops – she could eventually find a job. Probably.

After getting a cell phone, Liz decided to spend the rest of that day finishing up some last minute chores and scout out the place she needed to buy. First, she found a cheap hotel – she'd need the room until the place she needed was open – and bought some decent clothes (she hadn't brought any with her). At which point Liz made a point of looking for maps of the city; she'd already gotten lost twice, and she was starting to get really tired of being confused.

Then Liz took a taxi to the corner Ava had told her about more than a year ago, and got her first look at the place Zan had died. Or, rather, the place Zan _would_ die, in…. oh, about a month's time.

And right on the corner of that street, between a bar and a art gallery was an old book store with two stories. The older couple who owned it used to rent the top floor to their son, who'd eventually gotten married and moved away, so now it was just wasted space.

But about half a year ago, the wife had broken her hip, and between the mortgage, the merchandise, and the medical expenses, her husband had been working himself to the bone trying to make ends meet.

Liz hurried into the little store, praying desperately that this would work out the way she needed it to.

She spent a few minutes browsing through the books, pretending to be interested. Eventually she just grabbed a novel and a college-level biology textbook. It had been a while since she'd had the time to study her science of choice, so the latter was actually something Liz thought she might enjoy. She brought these up to the front just in time to watch a balding, beer-bellied man with a knit sweater pull off his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. He looked absolutely exhausted.

He looked nothing like her father, but in that moment Liz was reminded of him anyway.

Which… was actually surprisingly comforting.

Liz set the books on the counter and smiled. "Long day?"

He pulled his hand away from his eyes and blinked up at her. When he replaced his glasses, he turned a mechanical smile toward her and nodded. "Oh, you know how it goes. Will this be all for you today, miss?"

"Yeah," Liz nodded, looking down at her hands. Now came the really delicate part. "Do you happen to know if there's any places to rent up here? I've been looking for a place in this neighborhood – it's close to work and all that – and I'm starting to get kind of desperate…"

She was hoping that her suggestion would just speed up a decision he'd make anyway – to rent the upstairs floor out for some extra money.

"Uh – well…" He started, looking tired and distracted. "What kind of place are you looking for?"

"Nothing special – I spend a lot of time working and really just need a place to put my stuff. I'd like a closet and a bathroom would be nice, but I don't need a kitchen or anything. Just… a little space, you know?"

Of course, that was a perfect description of his upstairs floor, and Liz saw the idea come to life behind his eyes. He would have come up with it on his own eventually, but if she could just hurry the process a little…

The light went out, and he shook his head. "No, nothing that I can think of."

"Oh," Liz murmured, disappointment knotting her stomach. "Well – uh. If you think of anything, could you maybe give me a call?"

He agreed and she gave him her information. Even if he didn't call, she'd be back. She _needed_ this place. It was all part of the plan.

Liz left the bookstore and started heading back toward her hotel.

* * *

><p>A few hours later, Liz sat alone at a corner table in a little pizza joint. She'd picked up a few – or, really, more than a few – applications already, but honestly, until one of the jobs called back or Mr. Monroe decided to free up the upstairs, she really couldn't do much else. In which case, she might as well start working on some of her secondary projects. So Liz took out the one journal she'd kept in her backpack and started copying it into a freshly-bought spiral notebook.<p>

Part of the reason she'd given herself so much time in the past was to insure that she could get all the information from those journals and thumb drives copied over into something that would stick. After all, when she successfully changed the past, everything that she'd brought with her would disappear along with her, so if she wanted to leave any kind of information _behind_… It had to be written _here_, in the past, on and with materials belonging _to_ the past.

Liz flipped a page in the journal, trying to recreate the symbols exactly as they were written. She wasn't going to translate them – not here. The first and more trivial reason she wouldn't was that she wanted Zan – and hopefully, through him, the Roswell group – to learn to read Antarian themselves. It wouldn't exactly encourage that if she spoon fed them all the best information. The second reason was that if some government stooge managed to get a hold of any one journal, they wouldn't be able to translate it right away. She would use a whole separate notebook to hide an encoded key.

The bell on the door chimed, but Liz didn't pay any attention. She didn't have any instinct for this – not like Michael and Isabelle had – and there were a few of these symbols that she always screwed up. She squinted, trying to see if the weird little squiggly line bent three or four times. Liz sighed and quickly sketched it out; languages had never been her strong suit.

The sudden slam of a fist on the counter caught her attention, though.

Liz glanced up subtly to take a quick assessment of the situation. Some kids had come in, wearing very… interesting outfits. She couldn't see any of their faces, at the moment, but she recognized the general attitude. It was one a million kids their age all around the world seemed to share, past, present, or future.

Liz winced. _God, I feel old._

Liz started to look away when she caught sight of the face that went with the Mohawk. Behind the piercings and the make-up, she was looking into the younger face of a man who'd once been her best friend. Her brother, even. A man she hadn't seen in the four years since he'd died, looking ten years younger and possessing both arms.

Michael.

She barely stopped herself from saying the name out loud, but she couldn't stop herself from going a little green. Michael, who she'd been close to for ten years, who'd mourned with her over Maria's death. The boy who'd been best man at her wedding – Max and Liz had even him asked to be their baby's godfather. The guy who'd led the Rebellion through some of its darkest years, who'd listened to her desperate dream to change the past and hadn't scoffed.

_Oh, Michael…_

The sharp eyes, the rounded chin, the high cheekbones, the fuck-off expression that had warned everybody off in high school – that had made even Liz and Maria assume he was the worst kind of moron. It had taken her years to get close enough for him to let her see beyond that to the scared, lonely boy underneath.

Liz blinked back reflexive tears, and suddenly noticed that she'd stared too long. Michael – or, rather, _Rath_ – had caught her at it, and was now giving her a look somewhere between confusion and irritation. Liz flushed and quickly looked away.

Oh.

_Oh, shit. _

They couldn't be here. They _couldn't_. It would fuck up the timeline in totally unpredictable ways if they went to Roswell and recognized the other Liz – and it could completely annihilate her plans if the Roswell gang believed them. After all, what would they do if they heard that there was a "shape-shifter" pretending to be Liz in New York? And they would assume that, hopefully, because the only alternative Liz could picture them believing was that she was a Skin – in which case… so was her younger self. She'd like to believe they trusted her more than that, but then again, considering the crap that had gone down between them all the year Alex died…

_Shit, shit, shit!_

Liz kept her head down and realized with a sick jolt that they could probably see the Antarian journal from where they were standing. Luckily, the lack of reaction probably meant they hadn't noticed it yet. Liz waited a few minutes so that Mi- _Rath's_ attention would wander, and then she flipped to a clean page in the spiral notebook and carefully slid the whole thing over the journal.

She tried to keep her eyes down and focused on the paper, but it was _agony_ not to look up. The only one of these four still alive in her time had been Ava. And worse… worse was that if Rath was here, then so was Zan. And Zan… Zan had Max's face.

Liz kept her eyes locked on the table, but she was hyper aware of every move the group of teenagers made. The rest of the sound faded, and all she could hear were their voices – their taunts, their boasts, their laughter and casual conversation. They picked a table closer to the counter to wait for their pizza, and Liz heard the screech of the chair legs as they pulled them back, the gentle swish of fabric as they sat down...

Mostly, it was Rath that talked, with Lonnie throwing in the occasional embellishment or biting comment. Ava asked soft, timid questions to keep it going. Zan didn't talk much – mostly he just laughed at the stories Rath told. And then Rath got a little too into his story, and started talking about stealing someone's face -

"Rath." Zan muttered, his voice like velvet steel. Liz felt every muscle in her back tense, but she didn't turn to look at him. God, his _voice_… Liz closed her eyes to savor that sound, the deep, soothing timber that had once been able to lull her to sleep or heat her blood with just _one whisper_ -

Liz had loved his voice, once.

Liz'd cried for days when she'd realized she could no longer remember it.

So for a long second Liz sat there, with her eyes closed, and listened to him quietly hiss some rebuke or other. It didn't really seem quite the same, somehow – and it wasn't just that New York accent. He seemed like he was… playing with his words, somehow. Messing with them for some reason – although Liz couldn't imagine why.

Despite the differences, it was like… like feeling the wind after spending months inside, or like opening a photo-album you'd never seen before, filled with pictures of your childhood. He'd been so big a part of her for so long that she'd never really gotten over losing him; that hole he'd left behind had been too raw, too frightening to let heal. Having him so close – or someone so much _like_ him, anyway – made her remember that chasm all over again.

Liz took a deep breath and fought off the urge to cry.

She wanted to see him, but she forced herself to wait until she had control again before she glanced up.

She'd long forgotten all the little things, but that first glance brought back hundreds of faded reminders. The curve of his jaw, the dark, sleek hair, the olive skin, the strength in his arms…

She remembered the way it'd felt to run her fingers over the back of his neck, up into his hair, and what it felt like for him to hold her. He leaned away from Rath and smiled, and Liz remembered how they'd spent hours talking, and how that smile used to feel like peace, like _home – _

And for a moment, it was like Max was _right there_ in front of her, in arms reach. Her heart started to pound and the air froze in her lungs and –

Then Max faded, and the spiked hair, goatee, and tattoos became all Liz could see. The boy in front of her was just that; a boy, a _kid_, with an arrogant, jutted chin and no idea he had only a month to live. She was almost twice his age, and she'd never met him, and he _didn't_ look like Max if you were looking deeper than the skin. He didn't look like Max at all.

Liz glanced over the other three quickly, saw Ava – the same as before, only younger (_Jesus, _so _young!_) – and Lonnie – who had Isabelle's face but none of her gentle fragility – and Rath – who was more smiley and hyperactive then Michael had _ever_ been –

It was just their faces, worn like Halloween masks by a bunch of kids she'd never met.

_Just their faces. _

Liz bowed her head again, letting her short hair sweep over her face as she desperately tried to hide the shaking in her hands and the bloodless white of her skin.

_Oh shit… _

_What the _hell _did I get myself into…?_

* * *

><p>Zan kept an eye on the chick in the corner. He'd looked up a second ago and caught her checking out his crew. At first, he'd thought maybe she was a Skin or something, coming to give them a little <em>incentive<em> to head up to the Summit. They'd only sent the invite like yesterday, so it was probably a little early for that shit, but maybe not.

First thing he noticed was that she didn't look like no New Yorker. He couldn't see any piercings or ink, for one, and she wasn't dressed up like no suit, neither. She looked… well, she looked like a 'burb lady coming to see the Big Apple, what with the neutral colors and the tame looking hair.

'Cept, she didn't really look like no tourist he'd ever seen. No camera, no map, no _friends_. 'Sides which, she wasn't eatin' in a damn tourist joint – this was one of the best pizza places around here, and it was usually a place for the locals to chill.

Zan smiled at Ava and zoned out, still thinkin' 'bout the lady in the corner. He'd guess she was maybe… what, twenty five, twenty six? And there were a couple books on the table, so maybe she was a college kid, or some shit? Transferring to Columbia or whatev'. People did that, right?

Zan glanced over again and looked closer. Yeah… she looked like she could be one of those good student types...

She pushed her hair behind her ear, and some of it kind of rolled down her shoulder.

Shockingly, Zan felt his cheeks go a little red.

He turned back to the table and rubbed his eyes. No way. No fucking way, man. This chick was like ten years older than him, looked like she'd stepped right outta some little hick town in the middle of nowhere, and she wasn't even making eyes at him. She was aight and all that – if a lil' older then the girls he was usually into – but Zan didn't go for the goody-goody types.

Ever.

Lonnie picked up where Rath left off, and Ava kicked Zan's leg under the table. He glared at her from the corner of his eye and then started paying attention again. Whatever. It didn't change nothin' either way. If she was looking to start somethin', Zan knew he could take her out. No doubt; just _let_ that bitch try and take his crew – he'd show her why he was the man.

* * *

><p>The Royal Four spent a good hour there before they left and, breathing a sigh of relief, Liz waited another twenty minutes and headed out herself.<p>

They hadn't noticed her.

She was still here – she _hadn't disappeared_...!

_I still have a chance_.

Liz packed her journal and spiral, and she left a huge tip on the table. Then she was out like a rocket, launching herself down the street in a sprint that had saved her ass more than once in the past. As she ran, tears filled her eyes, and memories flew through her mind like a slideshow. Things she'd forgotten – or maybe just tried to forget – suddenly became bright, clear…

The way Max had cried when she'd told him she hadn't forgiven him for Tess.

The way Isabelle had called Liz her sister on her wedding day.

The feel of Max's hands on her stomach while their baby kicked.

Michael's laughter, back when it was real.

Maria's face, seeming more distant than ever now, as she ranted about something trivial.

That little smile Max got when he was thinking about her.

Alex tapping on his guitar – his face was gone after all this time, but that tap tap tap…

Tears blurred her vision, and she only just barely avoided a dangerous collision with a bike messenger – mostly because she was small and pretty quick. She dodged through the crowds, hearing angry shouting rise up from behind her, and dragging ragged gasps of air into her burning lungs. The slide show kept running.

Michael telling Liz he trusted her, just days before Isabelle died.

Maria helping her pick out a shirt – both of them laughing until they'd cried.

Her parents smiling at her graduation, the last time she'd ever seen them.

Max asleep beside her in the morning, muttering her name with a smile as he woke.

Wedding dress shopping with Maria and Isabelle, a complaining Kyle carrying the bags…

Michael teaching her how to block and throw a punch.

The grief on Max's face when he told her he couldn't heal them both…

Liz collapsed on the sidewalk, the cement slamming into her knees and digging the skin off her palms. She couldn't feel it – not the burn or the throbbing ache, not the chill of the night air, not any of it… She'd lost them – God, she'd lost them all, and they weren't really back even though she'd gone to the past to save them and –

– And the people she remembered… Michael with his missing arm and strong, proud Isabelle who'd married Jesse, and Max, the man who'd lost both this children before he'd even got the chance to know them, they… they didn't exist anymore.

She'd known that before she'd ever come back, but she hadn't let herself think about how she'd _forgotten_ them, and she'd forgotten the people they'd become that she'd _loved_ and…. And now they would never be those people. Like Zan and Max were different, like she was different from her seventeen year old self…

She could save the younger versions of the people she'd loved.

But the people they'd become in her time would still be dead.

Liz cried for a long moment until she calmed down. Then, snot covered and splotchy, she pushed herself back up to her feet. She stood for a minute trying to get back her balance and, ignoring the crowd of confused and disturbed people trying really hard _not_ to stare at her, she started walking toward her Hotel.

As Liz walked, she realized that what had just happened to her was long overdue. She hadn't mourned after Max's death – much like she hadn't really mourned after Alex's – and the rage she'd felt on hearing the news about Michael and Isabelle's death had simply added to the inferno she'd trapped deep inside her stomach. It had only strengthened her drive.

Liz'd mourned Maria, when it'd happened. She'd had Max to lean on, and Michael to comfort, and a war to plan, but she'd taken the time to mourn her. Liz hadn't known of any other options at the time.

But her little project had given her an outlet for more than a decade's worth of pent up grief and rage and depression. And now that she'd actually survived the trip back in time when deep, deep down, she'd never expected to…. It meant she had some things to face now. Like Max not being the man he would be in six years – the man she'd been married to, and had a child with. Michael was still an angry teenager; he'd never been a leader of anything, never actually had control of people's lives, never had to face up to a the kind of mistakes that destroyed lives. Isabelle was still her daddy's little girl – she'd hopefully never have to become the genuine Ice Princess she'd learned to be, spying on Kivar.

And now…

Max was not Zan, and Zan was not Max, and Liz was still completely and utterly alone.

Still, though. She was doing this to make their lives _better _– to undo the timeline that had destroyed them when they were still so very young. She was here to protect them, and she wasn't going to stop just because in a few short months, she'd be gone. She wasn't going to let loneliness and a desperate longing for old friends keep her from going through with her plan. What she wanted – what she _needed_ – just… didn't matter.

This wasn't her time; she was only a ghost, moving backwards.

Liz _would_ use the plan to make a better world, and then she'd cease to exist.

There were no other options. Not anymore.

* * *

><p>Liz got the call Tuesday morning.<p>

The bookstore man was willing to rent her the upstairs room.

After a few shopping trips, she was ready.

* * *

><p>AN: Again, I wanna know what kind of relationship you want Liz and Zan to form. Romantic? Or a close kind of platonic? Fair warning, though – whichever way I go, there <em>will <em>be lotsa drama. I mean, come on – his sister and best friend are gonna try to kill him! That's got to be damaging to an already seriously stress-prone alien mind.

Also, I'd like to know if you guys think I should split these chapters up a bit, considering they're kinda long…

Thanks for reading! Please review.


	3. Chapter 2: Changes

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Heya! I posted earlier than expected (again), mostly out of my own anxiety that I'd forget. Keep in mind though - these updates will probably not be this timely all the time. I'm mostly going quickly now because... well, because I've got a few chapters already ready. Makes it easy to be accommodating, I guess. :)

Anyway - couple things I should explain. 1) I've never been to New York, and so the sole example I have for Zan's group's slang is what I saw in that episode. I give no garauntee's that it will be accurate or consistant, although I did try. 2) These next few chapters are going to have angsty bits because... well, I can't imagine anybody _not _being angsty in Zan's situation. 3) If you see any issues with my timeline or reasoning or anything at all, please, _please _tell me. I'm taking this as a sort of learning experience, so I'd love to know what you guys think.

Well, that's all for now. Enjoy the update!

* * *

><p>Zan glanced at Rath's smug grin as he tucked the stolen ball under his arm, knowin' what was comin'. Usually Zan had no problem with Rath bein' a bulldog, you know? Well – not much ah one, anyways. They was brothers – the Duke and his Second – and sometimes you just had to put up with that kinda shit for family. But this...<p>

"They contacted us again last night. Same invite. What we gonna tell 'em?" Rath finally said, and Zan tried not to show just how tired he was ah the subject. When he finally answered, he was bein' careful to stay in control.

"Tell 'em no." Zan answered.

"Yo, you sayin' we ain't goin' to the Summi'?"

"That's what I'm sayin'." Zan didn't look at his sister. He didn't want to do this with Lonnie right now – he loved her an' all, an' she was his sister, but he was a lot more observant than Rath. He knew how she twisted things, how she messed with your head. Hell, she'd been doin' it since day one, right outta the pods.

And now, when there was something this important ridin' on his decision, he sure as shit wasn't gonna give her an opportunity to pull somethin'. Which was probably why Lonnie barely talked to him lately; she was too busy with Rath, whisperin' in his ear.

If Lonnie hadn't been his sister, he woulda checked this shit years ago.

"Yo, that's messed up, Duke!" Rath argued. "This is the only time we've ever been contacted!"

Zan felt a twinge of somethin', but he didn' pay it any attention. Yeah, this was the only time the peeps back home had showed any interest in them at all, an' yeah, there was a part of him that wanted to go and see what they had to say.

But Zan knew one thing that Rath didn't wanna face – here or on Antar, they were still half breeds, still freaks of nature one step short ah bein' dissected. At least here, they had the power; wasn't nobody on this rock who could take on the four of them when they was workin' together.

"Whatev'. That's it." Besides, whatever problem they was havin' back on Antar, it wasn't they problem no more. The Zan that gave a shit died, like, fifty somethin' years ago.

"We tell 'em no, they won't ask again!" This time it was Ava talkin'. Zan glanced over his shoulder at her, wishin' she'd just shut up about it. She didn't really want to go to Antar anyway; she was just backin' Lonnie and Rath 'cause they'd never let it drop if she didn'.

"Tell 'em _hell_ no." Rath quickly stepped in front of him, and Zan stopped only inches from his furious Second.

"Hey - what's up with you, man? I'm tired of you – I'll go by myself!" Zan blinked and sneered.

"They don't want the numba' two." He slowly looked Rath over head to toe. It bugged Zan more than he'd admit – this defiant shit Rath pulled sometimes, when he started to get a bug up his ass 'bout somethin'. It felt good sometimes to remind Rath where he stood on the chain ah command. "They want the Royal Four."

"Why don't we go and see what they gotta say? Why don't we go and get the answers?" Zan tensed, feelin' that little twinge of guilt again. He could see the desperation – the mad _need_ – written all over Rath; in his expression, in the tension practically _oozin' _off o' him like a heat mirage.

And he _got_ it – he really did. There was nothin' that got unda' your skin more than _not_ knowin' where you came from or why you was here. But Zan was also more than aware that those pricks at the Summit _knew _they wanted answers, and were usin' that hope to try and get somethin' from 'em – maybe that Granolith thing Nikolas had told 'em 'bout, or maybe somethin' else.

So Zan was stuck between _knowin'_ it was stupid to go – and it _was _stupid, they'd be basically bendin' ova' for the enemy _askin'_ to get screwed – an' messin' up the balance with his crew _here_, by tellin' 'em they couldn't.

Zan knew what they had to do, but Rath gettin' in his face about this shit when it was already hard enough to make the _right decision_…

"What if it's a setup?" Zan snapped disbelievingly. He couldn't believe Rath wasn't gettin' this - what about this was so friggin' hard to understand about _no_? Those alien douchebags _could not _be trusted - they knew this shit already. They'd been face to face with it more than enough times to –

"No, it's not a setup – they _need us_!" Rath insisted, totally convinced.

And Zan froze.

Something wasn't right.

Rath had always wanted to go home, and he'd always wanted answers.

But he'd also always been suspicious as shit of aliens. Zan was pretty sure it was because their pansy-ass Protector had stepped out on 'em when they'd needed 'im most – when they was just startin' to figure out who they were and what they could do. Lonnie and Zan hadn't really cared, considerin' they'd never liked 'im much anyway, and Ava had been a little hurt, but she got over it.

Rath had been friggin' _lost_, though. The man musta had some kinda daddy issues or somethin', cause he hadn't been himself for months after it all went down. It'd left scars - serious scars, and Rath had never trusted another alien outside the Four again.

So why the hell was he so sure of they motives, all of ah sudden?

Zan remembered Lonnie and Rath whisperin' on the couch the other night, just out of his and Ava's hearin' range. They hadn't been as touchy-feely as they usually were – that's why he'd noticed, at first. Lonnie had one hand massagin' Rath's thigh, but that was as far as it went, which… well, that wasn' normal for two of 'em.

Or, it hadn' _used_ to be, before they'd gotten the invite.

_Lonnie_ wanted to go home. Lonnie _needed_ to go home, for some reason. She'd been the first to start remembering their past lives, and unlike the rest of them, she'd got it all. Zan, Rath, even Ava only had bits and pieces – nothin' more than feelings an' impressions, really – but Lonnie… Lonnie remembered where her damn bedroom was, and who came to Zan's wedding, and what colors the moons had been...

And Zan had known for a long time that Lonnie couldn't stand bein' on Earth.

… Who's orders was Rath _really_ followin'?

_What – is _she _the Duke now?_

"I'm da man. Neva' forget." Zan whispered softly.

Rath didn't break eye contact.

_Come on, Rath. Don't make me do this. Don't make me fight you._

"Yo! Guys." Lonnie interrupted, coming to stand beside them. Zan watched carefully for a reaction, but Rath didn't give any sign he'd even noticed her. "It's been a mad long day. Let's just chill."

For another long minute, Rath kept trying to stare him down. Then Rath took a breath and visibly forced back the tension.

"Yeah, you da man." Rath admitted, grinnin' weakly.

Zan waited a second, tryin' to see if Rath was lookin' to Lonnie. But, as far as he could tell, that defiance from before had gone back to its usual simmer. Zan felt the tension in his shoulders start to ease.

He didn't wanna have to fight his own sister for control of the crew – not only 'cause she was his sister, but also 'cause if she had Rath on a leash, he wasn't sure he could take 'em both. Ava didn't count; she didn't like pickin' sides, and Zan had never felt right tryin' to force her.

Lonnie had the skillz, Rath had the power, and Zan had a good combination ah both. Alone, he could take either of 'em – no problem. But together?

Hell no.

Lonnie was crazy, not stupid – and worse, she was da bomb at that psychological shit.

But if Rath was still followin' his lead, then maybe Zan didn't have anythin' to worry about. He coulda just imagined it all.

Zan felt almost… he'd never used this pansy assed word out loud, but almost _giddy. _High on that sudden blast of energy that always rode in with relief. He smiled an' messed with Rath a lil, then went back to leadin' his crew off toward their crib.

When the ball bounced past his right side, Zan didn't think anythin' of it. He just leaned forward to grab it and pass it back, glancin' up for a moment when he leaned forward.

He saw some chick across the street from him, leaning against the wall an' starin' at his crew. Or, no... not his crew.

At him.

_Ain't she that chick from - _

A hand hit his back and shoved, sendin' Zan sprawling in the road on his hands and knees. He knew who the hand belonged to – there was only one person standin' that close, after all, and that was Rath. For an instant, his mind whirled with rage – he thought Rath might just be actin' like an idiot, startin' shit cause Zan said they weren't goin'. Bein' a lil bitch and playin' possum till Zan wasn't lookin', then pickin' a fight.

He started to turn his head to look over his shoulder, and on the way up his eyes met the headlights of a truck.

_He's tryin' to kill me_.

Zan'd never actually considered that possibility before. _Fight_ him, yeah – take control ah the crew and ditch him, _hell_ yeah – but _kill him_? Never in a million years.

But in that instant when Zan watched the headlights grow, he didn't have any doubts. Somethin' hadn't been right lately; Zan had felt it, like a friggin spider on the back of his head, crawlin' in circles and circles, sendin' chills down his spine. Somethin' was just _off_ in his home, but he'd thought it'd go away when this Summit shit was over and done with. He'd _wanted_ it to just go away.

Yet for some reason, in that moment, Zan knew the truth.

He _knew_ Rath had tried to kill him.

Lonnie, too, probably.

Fuck – maybe even Ava had known, an' just not said anythin'.

But before he could think too much on that – or, more importantly, before he could _move outta the fuckin' way_ – those headlights were on him, and he didn't know anythin' anymore.

* * *

><p>Liz had been prepared for it, but seeing Lonnie smile as she killed her brother made Liz want to vomit. She pushed the nausea aside and – feeling like the worst kind of person in existence – watched carefully as the truck skidded to a stop and the screaming started.<p>

She kept her eyes on Lonnie and Rath as they dragged a struggling Ava into the sewers. Adrenaline surged through her body, making her sweat and shake and making that moment seem to stretch out into decades. She only had a limited amount of time during which she could save Zan's life – but if she went too early, what was left of the New York crew might realize something was wrong and come back. That had to be… surgical.

_Wait._

Once she was sure they were out of sight, she hit the metal switch on the side of the TPD disk with a breath of relief. Instantly, a wave of green went out in all directions, looking almost like an insanely large swath of semi-transparent fabric floating in the breeze, washing over the street and nearby buildings. Everything that emerald light hit immediately slowed to a crawl.

The TPD disk was a version of the temporal field that the shifters had used on Roswell so many years ago. It didn't merge multiple temporal planes, like that one had; it pushed the planes further _apart_. Instead of making all moments exist at once – a state that forced the human body into a space _outside_ the planes, thus making them 'disappear' – it made each moment last _longer_.

She only had five minutes before things went back to normal, so she sprinted into the street and held her hands over Zan's head. She took a deep breath and focused; this was one of the easiest skills to master for an Antarian, but it had never come easily to Liz. Still, she summoned the energy and psychokinetically lifted Zan's broken, bleeding body into the air.

Immediately her head started to throb. She blinked and carried him backwards through the street towards the alleyway. There was a set of stairs there that led to the second floor, and Liz turned her head to watch her step as she went up, catching her heel on the curb and almost losing her hold on Zan. She got back to her feet quickly enough, but precious seconds had been wasted, and it only added to her need to hurry.

Her heart pounded in her ears as she ascended, her breath coming shorter and shorter. When Max healed her he had given her some Antarian genes – not anywhere near as many as the half-human Royal Four had, but enough to push a sort of evolution in her brain. That evolution had both alien and human origins, which meant that both Liz and Kyle had developed… just a little differently than everybody had expected. Basically, they'd gained some abilities Max and the others couldn't even begin to recreate (like Liz's precognition), but were also completely incapable of doing some of the things the Antarian's considered child's play.

This particular ability had taken her years of practice to access, and she still couldn't do more than minor things for short periods before her energy would be completely drained. This – carrying a seventeen year old boy, in _very_ good shape, from the middle of a street, up the stairs, and across the living room – was more than she'd ever had to push herself to do before.

It was also the single most draining thing she'd ever done.

Liz glanced up and saw a man wander onto the street, looking completely terrified. Muttering a curse under her breath, she hurried into the alleyway and turned her focus completely back on Zan – she couldn't afford any distractions, and no matter what the man said at this point, no one would believe him.

… Er… well, probably not, anyway.

As if in punishment for her distraction (however short termed), Liz almost tripped over a step. Luckily, this time she caught herself before she fell – her almost dangerous backwards scramble up the stairs slowing only slightly. Gasping for breath and feeling sweat run down her face, Liz focused on the door at the top and forced herself to keep moving even though every step sent ribbons of fire through her lungs.

When she got to the top and opened her door, she stepped into a shadowed room and realized that her vision was beginning to spin. She was so, _so _close to finishing – so close to actually _completing _her final objective…

Somehow, Liz made it across the room – although, it probably wasn't a good sign that she couldn't remember the actual process of walking to the couch. Nonetheless, she turned Zan so he floated in front of her, and then gratefully lowered him onto the couch.

Liz's vision was getting dim and almost _throbbing_ – and, as if it wasn't already hard enough, a sudden wave of vertigo almost sent her to the floor. She let herself fall to her knees (her bag _was_ on the floor at the foot of the couch, after all) and grabbed the second device on the way down (this one roughly shaped like a thick, handle-less _spork_) from the table. She turned back toward Zan, propping her elbows on the couch, and quickly shoved the prongs into his neck.

A little spurt of blood escaped, and then was trapped as turquoise goo spilled out in all directions from the device, spreading rapidly along Zan's skin. It seemed disturbingly alive as it wandered under the collar of his shirt, heedless of gravity the comparative weight of the clothing. It crawled under his shirt, and she could see the fabric being pushed aside as it coated his skin – directly against his skin, even if that meant it had to fuse to anything skin tight.

In less than thirty seconds, it had completely coated his entire body.

Even as she watched, the goo got a little lighter – a sign that it was hardening into the thick, freakishly hard layer that would serve as a sort of healing bodysuit. The same kind of bodysuit – referred to as a Shell – that had saved Kivar after Michael's attack.

_Figures the species that came up with the 'Husk' would think of this. _

Liz leaned her forehead against the Shell and closed her eyes, sending up a silent _thank you_ to whoever had let her pull that little stunt off. Liz almost laughed – the last part – the _most important_ part – of her plan had succeeded.

_Max… I did it. _

* * *

><p>The effort caught up with her, and Liz slid down off the couch as she lost consciousness.<p>

Liz woke up to the sound of knocking.

Still half asleep, she realized she was lying on the awful, thin grey carpet in her new living room and that the blue-green… _thing_ hanging above her was Zan's arm. She thought for a minute that she had to be dreaming, but the pounding on the door slowly brought her to full awareness. The knowledge that no – she wasn't dreaming, this room, that arm, they were _real _–

Liz came off the floor so quickly the resulting head-rush almost pulled her right back down.

"What the hell?" She hissed, looking around the room again. She shouldn't be here – she should be friggin' _gone_! That Shell should have been capable of healing Zan – he'd had some pretty heavy internal damage and shattered most of the bones in his body, sure, but his head had only sustained minor trauma. Kivar had had most of the skin on his right side burned off, his insides had been riddled with shrapnel, and the bomb's concussive force had sent him head first through a friggin _metal door_, and _he'd_ recovered. He'd come out completely unscathed, in fact.

_Bastard. _

Liz glanced at Zan, but the Shell was still there. If he'd died sometime in the night, the Shell would have died too – that's how it was designed. Antarian Bio-Tech at its finest.

So if Zan being alive hadn't changed the past…

The pounding on the door was getting more and more insistent.

Liz moaned and started to walk to the door. Half-way there she glanced back at Zan and froze, looking around for something to hide the freaky looking blue mannequin on her couch. Finally, she just grabbed a blanket off a chair and threw it over him. It still looked weird – nobody could lay down that stiffly and be _comfortable_ – but it looked less like she was keeping a tie-dye blow up doll in her living room.

Liz blinked.

Now, _that_ was a disturbing mental image.

… _Were_ there even guy blow up dolls? She'd only ever actually seen the busty blonde ones, and even then it was only on TV –

The person at the door started knocking faster.

Liz shook her head and pulled herself off the random tangent.

"I'm coming!" Liz checked to make sure no appendages were showing, quickly smoothed her hair, and walked to the door. Just to be safe, she pulled the chain lock on first. She took a deep breath, opened the door and smiled at –

– … cops.

_Shit._

"Hello ma'am. I'm Sergeant Doyle and this is my partner Brody. I'm looking into an accident that happened outside your apartment yesterday evening. Do you happen to know anything about that?"

_Yesterday? _Liz glanced at the clock. 10:13 AM. _Wow. _

Liz closed the door a little and unlocked the chain. This time she opened the door wider so she could watch both of them at once.

"Um – no, I'm sorry sir." Liz tried to think why she wouldn't know. She would've heard it, had she been here – after all, it had happened _right under _her window. So… Work? No – too easy to check. A party? Eh. Maybe. They might ask where, and she didn't actually know where any parties had been last night, for obvious reasons. But just 'out' should work, right? Or better yet, out drinking – makes it easier to play both stupid and confused if she was supposed to be hung-over. "I was out until, like, three, though, so I haven't really had time to hear about it. What happened?"

"Well, witnesses said that some punk kid fell into the road and got hit by a truck. The driver saw it – along with about a dozen other people – and there's a pretty decent amount of blood on the street, but nobody can find the boy that got hit."

Liz let her eyes widen and her mouth drop open a little. She tried her best for a horrified expression. "Oh my God – is he okay?"

"The things is, ma'am…" Liz fought off a twitch. She'd been called ma'am before – the Rebellion was mostly filled with college age kids who'd been in awe of her reputation as Max's widow – but never with the patronizing tone this guy was using. "… We don't know for sure. We haven't been able to find him. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

He started stepping forward, suggesting through body language that they come inside, and Liz blinked.

"Um – sure. But can we do it in the hall? My – uhm, my boyfriend's kind of sleeping off a hangover in here." Doyle's eyes narrowed a little as he looked behind her. He should only see the end of the couch from there, and that meant he'd only get a view of Zan's blanket covered feet. Liz swallowed back the guilty urge to check and smiled sweetly.

Doyle relaxed and nodded.

Liz stepped out with him, closing the door behind her.

"Ma'am, may I start by asking your name?" This time it was Brody, who was both shorter and more twitchy then his partner. Liz blinked and then smiled.

"Yeah, sure – my names Beth Montgomery," which was actually her 'real' name here – or at least, according to all the very _legit looking_ papers she'd used to get her waitressing job, it was.

"And have seen a young man, about five ten to six feet tall, dark hair and a goatee? Chances were he'd be wearing dark clothes – probably a hoodie and jeans, both baggy. Obviously injured?"

"Umm…" Liz looked to the right, blinking slowly and doing a pretty passable impression of thinking back. "… I don't _think_ so. Although, granted, I wasn't real – uh… _observant_ last night, if you catch my meaning."

They stared at her for a minute and Liz started to feel a little nervous. Suddenly, she pretended to perk up. "Oh! But you know who might know? There's a guy who works as a bouncer at the club down the street. He stands outside all night, and all kinds of people stop to chat 'im up. If anybody knows anything about that accident, it'd probably be him."

Liz watched their eyes sparkle with interest and almost cheered.

After she'd given them the info they needed (full – _fake _– name, phone number, etc.), she headed back inside, locking the door behind her. She took a deep breath and turned back to the bigger problem: Zan.

And her _not_, apparently, having changed the future by saving him.

She'd learned from Future-Max that only big changes would work. In the first time-line, she hadn't set Max up with Tess across the street the way she did in the second. But ultimately that little encounter hadn't changed anything significant enough to separate the first and the second time-lines – as had been proven by Future-Max having been still very much present in the past.

Liz blinked. _Uh…_

She shook her head and ignored the unintentional – and confusing – pun.

So even though technically Liz hadactually changed the past, it hadn't been a big _enough_ change to undo the future Future-Max had lived through.

Liz groaned and rubbed her head; she still had a lingering headache from the exhausting mental work-out she'd done the day before, and the trying to work out temporal paradox's wasn't exactly helping. Still, she had to figure this out, so she ignored the pain and kept thinking.

So if saving Zan hadn't made her disappear, then…

Liz's eyes narrowed as the possibilities started to solidify in her mind.

If _that_ hadn't changed the past, then ultimately, nothing big had changed.

Liz frowned. The only way that were possible was if one of two things were true. One, Zan would end up living the rest of his life as a hermit – influencing nothing and never getting involved in the conflict around him. Not only did that mean he would _never meet_ the Roswell four – because if he had, the information Liz was planning to give him would have definitely changed _something_ – but he'd also decided not to join _either side _in the coming war.

Considering what Ava had told her about Zan... Yeah. Not likely.

Besides which, something about it felt really improbably. Cause really – if people had known about his existence, it _would _have changed something, whether he did something or not. And what were the chances of a guy like Zan – an teenage boy with anger issues – actually being able to hide from an entire secret society of aliens and government officials for more than a couple of weeks?

Two, Zan would have no significant effect because he'd die too soon to create one.

Liz stared at the unconscious clone for a long minute, trying to piece together what that might mean. Zan was young and – current injuries excluded, of course – healthy, and not likely to die of natural causes anytime soon. This meant, if he was left to his own devices when he woke up in this apartment, either Zan would end up murdered or he'd die in some kind of an accident.

The list of potential enemies was a hundred miles long, so she decided not to try and put any names to paper just yet. The list of things that could kill him accidently – such as, oh, maybe getting hit by a _truck_ – were much shorter in number, given his healing abilities, but it wasobviously not outside the realm of possibility.

The possibilities were… endless.

And there was really no way to know for sure what would kill him, yet.

Liz sighed and covered her face in her hands.

Well.

Apparently she'd be playing bodyguard for the foreseeable future.

* * *

><p>A little while later, Liz walked around the room, irritated that the things she'd done to prepare him when he woke up would be wasted. She'd spent three hours writing the note on the coffee table alone, in which she'd explained this whole convoluted situation to him in an admirably clinical, but still sympathetic way.<p>

Liz sighed and brought it back over to the black backpack in the corner, shoving it in with a lot more force than was necessary. That backpack now had pretty much everything she'd thought he'd need (barring stuff like food, which would've spoiled) – including her journals, the note, and all the money she'd saved up from her crappy waitressing job.

She still had a good chunk of what she'd brought with her – spending more than a decade hiding from the government tended to make one into a pretty thrifty spender – but, had she disappeared, all that Future-cash would've vanished right along with her. She'd even bought a new backpack for him to carry all of it, knowing her own tattered army bag wouldn't outlast her either.

That note had had an explanation of what had happened to him, who she was, where she'd gone, and what she'd wanted him to do. Ava's tip that Zan had always been bull-dog stubborn about paying his debts meant that she'd added a hopefully helpful you-owe-me-for-saving-you undertone – hopefully subtle enough not to back fire and piss him off, of course. Specifically, she'd asked him to study all the journals she'd left for him, and then pass them on to the Roswell Four.

Of course, Liz had no guarantee he would have actually _done_ any of that, Ava's tip or no.

Still, it wasn't like she'd had any other choice but to try.

Liz pulled the last of the sticky notes off the objects in the room, and caught a whiff of something rank. After a second, she realized where it was coming from, and with a sigh she headed back over to the couch.

Liz grabbed her Swiss army knife and started cutting the blood-soaked clothes off the Shell – thanking every deity in hearing range that these things did such a good job obscuring the body underneath. A few had to be worked free, and the occasional scrap – like the elastic waist-band of his boxers – were fused too deeply to be cut free. When she finally got what she could off, she spent a long minute just staring at what was left of them, marveling at how completely destroyed they'd become.

She rubbed at one of many dark stains, and rust colored dry blood flaked off in her hand.

Feeling a little sick, Liz threw the entire, disgusting hand-full in the trash

Liz sat back down on the coffee table and remembered some of Ava's… less _pleasant_ descriptions of the boy laid out in front of her. Ava had said a lot without knowing just how much she was giving away – like the fact that Zan had always been really touchy about who controlled what.

Max hadn't _really _become like that until he thought Liz and Kyle had… well. Which, if they were at all alike mentally, told Liz a lot about the emotional states Zan had spent most of his life experiencing; insecurity, resentment, distrust, rejection…

_Of course, I could be wrong – maybe he's just naturally an ass._

Outside of Zan's personality, Ava had bragged pretty often about the 'good old days' and all the havoc they'd created on the streets. That included several rather _inventive_ pranks, a few bloody brawls, and more than a few misdemeanors. Even a couple things that would have earned them short stays in prison, had they been a few years older and a lot less alien.

It was easier to get away with things like stealing a bumper and painting inappropriate images on street signs when you could change your face and do it all at a distance of fifty feet.

Liz felt the sudden urge to cry.

Even sweet, shy little Ava, who'd told Liz more than once how deeply she loved Zan, had described him as _difficult_.

_And now he's my responsibility. _Liz sighed again fell back on the table.

"I'm gonna need a new plan."

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><p><strong>AN<strong>: Okay - standing question: what kind of relationship do you want Liz and Zan to for? Romantic? Platonic? Keep in mind - if you pick romantic, it'll be a while. Zan doesn't trust her yet, and for good reason.

Next update will be... sometime in the future. Hopefully soon, probably within a month. Kinda all the certainty I can give you, though - working out some issues with the plot atm.

Thanks for reading. Please review! :)


	4. Chapter 3: Consequences

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Okay, so… yeah. Sorry for the delayed update. Unfortunately, I hit a dry spell a couple chapters up, and I had a hard time pulling myself out of it. Hopefully it's over now though (knocks on wood), in which case you should (probably) be getting quicker updates.

There's a couple things I wanted to warn you about. First off, I have my own issues with the time travel concept of this story – in this case, the butterfly effect. After all, how could Liz meeting the Future-Max not change _something_? If Liz knew the Granolith could be used to go back in time, she'd come up with the idea quicker than in the first time line – which means less deaths, maybe a different plan, a whole different thing. Plus, Liz's meeting the first Max, and knowing they'd been married and still in love some fourteen years into the future probably had a big impact on how certain she was that she and Max would be together, subconsciously. Without that, she'd likely have been a little more insecure about their future, so even if nothing else had changed, the way their relationship grew and progressed really should have.

Uh… anyway, so yeah. Rant over. My point is that, in my opinion, every little change should have some effect, but since that's not how they did it in the show, I'm completely happy to run with it and create my own story. Even then, though, it requires some suspension of disbelief – Future Max was only in the past a day or two, after all, whereas Liz, at this point, has been there for almost a month and a half. And she'll be there a while longer.

How, in all that time, could she not smack a butterfly and cause a typhoon?

Simple answer… she can't. So just ignore that and enjoy the story, k?

Oh – and also, I think a lot of times people oversimplify the implications of changing the past, so I dedicated this chapter to looking at that. After all, what Liz did – undoing time, deciding for herself how the fate of the whole world should go… it's idealistic, but actually also pretty arrogant and self-serving. I wanted Liz to do this not because it was the morally right thing to do (not that it's wrong, either, more middle ground) but because she believed in it. She's taking a shot in the dark, and hoping for the best – except in a very formulaic, scientist-Liz fashion.

Anyway, on with the chapter, and sorry for the super long author's note.

Please review!

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><p>Liz had just started getting used to the blue-green statue in her living room when the Shell began to crack – a sure sign that Zan would be waking up at some point in the next twenty-four hours. When Liz realized what this meant, she called Marcus – her boss – and told him that her kid brother was sick and she needed a few days off to take care of him, and then she headed to the closest park to think.<p>

Liz had yet to actually come up with an alternative plan.

Yes – she'd known she'd need one. Yes – she'd had plenty of time to come up with one while Zan was comatose on her couch. And yes – she'd even known that coming up with _something_ quickly would help her drastically cut down on potential stress factor later.

Honestly, though, even knowing it would have been safer and smarter and in general the _better thing to do_ to make the plan before Zan had woken up, she hadn't wanted to. Oh – even _she'd_ admit, if only to herself, that she was just pushing it aside because it made her uncomfortable. Still, just because she couldn't completely immerse herself in denial didn't mean she wanted to actively confront it.

But the cards were down, and it was time to man up – figuratively, of course. She couldn't avoid it anymore, which meant she had to face up to all her excuses, accept her actual fears, and push them aside. She needed _some _kind of plan _now_.

So sitting in the shade under an old, gnarled tree, Liz asked herself why she was really avoiding the subject. The first part was actually pretty easy; she didn't want to be the one to remake the past. Oh, sure, she'd spent years building a device to _undo_ the past – to introduce a catalyst that would change the world in several unpredictable ways, but she'd never actually planned on changing anything _herself_. Nothing hands-on, nothing deliberate.

Her original plan had been to go back, save Zan, and disappear – leaving him her journals and a request to bring those journals to Roswell when he was through studying them. Through him, the Roswell Four would (hopefully) receive a bunch of detailed data about the future and other information she thought they might need. Using that, Zan and Max – and Iz and Michael, theoretically – could make their own decisions of what could_ and_ _should_ be changed.

She'd told herself this would be the 'right' choice, that the people of the past had the right to make their own decisions. And anyway, what if more than one thing needed changing? But if she was being honest with herself, she was also ignoring all the reasons this would've been cruel – and even morally wrong. After all, she wasn't giving this chance to _all _the people of the past, just her chosen few, and how was that any better than changing it by herself? At least she'd_ lived_ the future, and wasn't likely to miss anything.

No. Liz'd had a much more personal reason for avoiding it.

_I don't want to make it worse. _

This kind of self-doubt was actually really unusual for Liz. Sure – there were things she knew she wasn't ready for, but she was also pretty confident that, given time and the right information, she could always _become_ ready. That was why she'd always been so sure she'd go to Harvard, why she'd still waited for Max even after he'd started dating Tess. She'd loved him and had wanted him to love her back, so even after she'd forced him to move on, a part of her had always believed he'd never give up on their relationship.

There had always been a part of Liz that had told her she'd eventually get what she wanted. If she worked hard enough, if she put enough effort into it, if she just _wanted it enough_, there was nothing in the world that could stop her from taking it.

It had taken her years to realize she was doing it, but it was a trait she'd come to depend on after the war. And yeah, in normal times, it was probably the worst kind of self-delusion, but when it's you against the world and the only things you have on your side are luck and determination… well, there wasn't anything you could do about the luck.

She wanted to find so-and-so for such-and-such information – and she did. She wanted to get her hands on a certain book from a certain private, _restricted _collection, and she did.

She wanted to go back to the past, and she did.

And sure – she could've just as easily _died_ (or worse). But it hadn't really mattered, because it wasn't in Liz to give up after she'd started something. She did what she believed she had to – Michael had jokingly told her once that she was "like the friggin' terminator" sometimes. Liz just didn't doubt herself very often - she wasn't built that way.

But there was a really big difference between actively messing with the past and everything she'd done before. After all, doing experiments, completing missions, even doing forbidden research into forgotten technology – it was all very scientific. Go to point A, then point B, then point C to get result D. Easy. Changing the past was mostly guesswork, and Liz had good reason to believe she'd be very, _very_ bad at it.

After all… she'd already done it wrong once before.

Future-Max had said that he and_ Future-Liz_ had found out how to use the Granolith to go to the past. If this was true, then presumably Future-Liz had known – and approved of – Future-Max's little theory about Tess being the key to making a better world.

Which meant that Liz _now_ could make the _exact same mistake_.

What happened if she chose the wrong thing to change? What happened if whatever she changed could not be _un_changed? Even though it was hard to imagine a future worse than her own, she already knew of one really good thing that had happened: she'd gone back to the past. And if she changed something, and Present-Liz died or got the wrong information about time-travel or whatever, the people of _this_ time-line might never get the same opportunity she'd had to change the past – even if it really, _really _needed it.

Last time, the Future versions of themselves had made the stupid assumption that any change would be a good change. But they'd been wrong. Max had died even earlier; they'd lost their leader – and their best hope of Antarian aide – in the very beginning of the war. Michael had been next to lead, but his support group had been weaker, and even he'd eventually been killed. Liz had had to go on alone, and there'd been a lot of times when she'd barely gotten out of a bad situation alive.

What if, this time, young Liz died early in the war, and took the potential she had with her?

For this very reason, Liz had included information about time travel in the journals – a sort of 'how-to' as a last resort, not to be used unless just about everybody was dead and there were no other options. But those journals were apparently no more likely to get used than Zan was to survive, or she'd have disappeared by now.

She wasn't at all sure she'd be good at changing the past.

Liz sighed.

_Do I really have any other option, though?_

Liz desperately needed a plan. Liz had _always_ needed a plan – even on a good day, lack of direction left her twitchy and uncomfortable– and this was the absolute worst possible time to be off her game. Zan _needed_ her to watch his back right now, and if she missed even one little, seemingly unimportant detail, he could end up dead.

Worse, the first big change she made would also inevitably be her last. Once she did it, she'd disappear, and if the results were horrible, she wouldn't even be around to try and fix her mistake. She'd have only one shot at this…

Liz left the park and stopped by a gas station for a notebook and some pens, then headed to a local coffee-shop. Nobody there was paying any attention to her, so she grabbed something simple and cheap and picked a table in the corner.

She opened the first page and sat there for a while, trying to decide how to start. Eventually, she decided to make several charts – objectives, advantages, threats, and random.

Threats to Zan, Liz didn't include. There were way too many possibilities, and she had absolutely nothing to slim down the list, so thinking about it right now was pointless.

Still, she should probably start with the _people_ that might be behind the threats – after all, they were likely to be threats not just to Zan, but to the Roswell Four and the War in general. After a moment, she decided on a few names and jotted them down.

**Kivar. Gorn. Jemir. Agents Kirsch, Johansson, Pruett. Niro. Nicholas.**

Five of which were Antarian jerks she'd come up against more than once – Gorn being Kivar's head spy, Jemir his strongest mind-wiped mercenary, and Niro and Nikolas were both politians from Antar who'd supported his cause. FBI Agents Kirsch, Johansson, and Pruett were basically just chronic annoyances that might've become dangerous under different circumstances. She hesitated a moment, then quickly jotted down two more.

**Lonnie. Rath? **

Lonnie would join Kivar at her first possible opportunity – and, being both better trained and completely psychotic – she'd occasionally given what was left of the Roswell Four serious problems. Rath, however, she'd never seen again; she'd always suspected Lonnie or maybe one of Kivar's guys had done him in. Still, in the present he was still alive (and in Roswell, right about now), which made him a possible threat.

Okay, now… situational threats?

Liz narrowed her eyes, thought for a moment and disregarded the first few that came to mind; there was really nothing she could do about the treaty between Drox and Antar – Kivar spent years courting Hannar's favor, and there was nothing Liz could do from Earth to change that. And even if busting into the Summit and trying to force the other world leaders to turn on Kivar had been at all plausible, she really couldn't guarantee she could do that _and_ protect Zan. After all, if she made another big change at this point, she'd disappear – and then who'd be there to keep Zan from dying, and with him, all the information he could have given to the Roswell Four?

Zan _had to survive_ – at least long enough to pass on everything she'd worked so hard to bring back. Without that information, there was absolutely no guarantee they wouldn't just make the same mistakes all over again.

Which actually gave her another threat.

**Zan dying before going to Roswell.**

And… that got her to thinking about threats to this time in specific.

**Government capturing the Four. Kivar getting the Granolith. ANY of the Four dying. **

This list was making her really uncomfortable, so – at least for the moment – she moved on to advantages.

… **The Granolith. Healing, Iz's sleep visiting, Michael's shape changing (net yet applicable). Human allies. Max's healed Hybrids. Ava? Zan. My journals. **

The Hybrids had actually started popping up midway through the war – normal people Max had healed at some point (mostly kids just barely becoming teens) who discovered they now had strange powers. Most of them had gotten caught and experimented on by Kivar's guys, but a few had joined the Rebels and had been pretty valuable…

Liz tapped her pencil on the paper for a few minutes. She tried not to let it bother her that she couldn't think of any more than that, but honestly… it was really depressing to see just how little they had going for them right now. And more than a little demoralizing.

_I just… can't think of it all right now. Move on to objectives. _

The first one came easy because she'd mentioned it for both the threat and the advantage list. Even without thinking very hard, Liz saw an obvious connection between the future she'd come from and the future Future-Max had come from.

Neither had the Granolith.

Granted, in her future that was because it'd been _used_, whereas in Future-Max's time it had been taken and hidden away by Kivar – but still. Both world's Roswell Four had somehow lost the Granolith at some point, and could really have used it earlier on.

Obviously, there was no guarantee that was the _only _problem, but Liz jotted it down anyway.

**Protect the Granolith. **

Liz, feeling a sudden surge of inspiration, just kept writing whatever popped into mind.

**Protect Zan. Protect the Four. Save Maria. Pre-empt the war. **

** Save Alex. **

Liz immediately stopped and stared down at the paper. Why hadn't she thought of that before? After all, Liz was now in a position to completely undo one of the darkest times of her life – when one of her first friends had been murdered. She could save him, and stop herself from almost going crazy with the grief and mindless rage. She could stop the rift from forming, stop Max from ever looking for comfort with Tess –

_Stop baby Zan from being born?_

Her exuberance died and was replaced by a horrified comprehension.

_Oh my God… _

Liz felt the blood drain from her face.

_Either Alex dies… or little Zan does?_

Of course, that voice of rationality spoke up from the back of her mind, reminding her that dying wasn't exactly the same thing as simply 'ceasing to exist', but Liz wasn't in the right mental state to listen to that voice. As far as she was concerned, it was.

She'd signed up to die for her cause; baby Zan didn't.

Liz stared at the paper, helplessness freezing her in place.

_How can I make that choice? What even gives me the _right_ to?_

Had this decision been given to her some fourteen years ago, when she'd first gotten the news that Alex was dead, she would have saved him in a heart-beat. But she'd had fourteen years to mourn, to accept it, and to move on. She'd loved Alex like a brother, and he definitely hadn't deserved what happened to him, but he'd had a pretty happy life. He hadn't had to watch everyone he'd ever loved die, and at some of her most pathetic moments, she'd really envied him for that.

And… God, it'd been _so long_.

She couldn't even remember his face anymore.

And the guilt _that_ thought brought on, all on its own, almost made the decision for her. But then she remembered the face of a bitter, _heart-broken_ preteen boy, wanting so badly to have his adopted father back, to _earn _his mother's love again… That boy who'd looked so much like Max that, the first time she'd seen him, she couldn't stop herself from tearing up.

_I can't do this. This… this is way too much like playing God!_

Liz swallowed back the bubbling terror and reminded herself to think rationally.

No – she didn't have any right to make this choice, but that hadn't exactly stopped her before. She'd gone back into the past _knowing_ that a different future would mean there'd be children she'd stop from being born, and children would be born that hadn't been before. She'd known that - and she'd done it anyway.

_You're already playing God, Parker. You can't back out now. _

There was no one else who knew what she knew, who was in the position to do what she could do. She _had_ to make this decision – right or wrong – because there wasn't anybody else around to make it. And _not_ acting would be the same thing as choosing little Zan over Alex, so she couldn't just ignore it and hope it'd go away.

Liz sighed.

_Okay. So. Rational. _

_Pretend like that choice is not on the table. Pretend like the choice is interfering before or after Alex dies. Which decision would be better for everyone involved? _

_ If I get involved only after, I've got more time. I can… I don't know, teach Zan – big Zan – more about the future. About technology and Antar and… well, a lot of things. Plus, it'll give me more time to work on stopping whatever it is that's going to kill him. _

_ What advantages are there – besides saving Alex – to changing things before then? _

Liz felt immediately guilty about treating Alex like a nonentity, but from a strictly logical point of view, it was unlikely he'd be any use in the war. Alex was a sweet-heart, but he was a pure philosopher – and not like Kyle, who had only gone to Buddhism to try and understand the insanity he'd recently uncovered in the world around him but was still a jock and a mechanic and a cop's son deep down. Alex was a thinker through-and-through. He'd probably have made an excellent diplomat, in another life.

But diplomacy would not work with Kivar.

So Liz pushed the guilt aside and tried to think if there were any reasonable reasons to interfere before he died.

After a minute, she did – and the awful surge of relief it brought almost made her cry.

_I can't let Tess take the Granolith. _

_ I don't know when she got pregnant exactly, but I know it was _just before_ they used the crystal to activate the Granolith. Once that crystal's been used, nobody can stop it from going to Antar – which means I'm going to have to get involved before they do that. _

_ Probably even before Zan is conceived. _

_ So if there's no guarantee I won't erase his existence anyway… then it's _rational_ to go back before that. To go back early enough to save Alex, rather than showing up after he dies but before Zan's conceived and erasing them both. _

Liz took a deep, calming breath. _Okay…_

As soon as her heart had stopped pounding, another question came to mind.

_How _much_ sooner?_

Liz frowned.

_Not too soon – I need as much time as possible to be sure big Zan's safe. But I also don't want to go too late to save Alex. _

_ Okay. So… how early do I have to be to save Alex? _

Liz thought back, trying to remember if they'd ever found out exactly what it was that killed Alex – since, obviously, it _hadn't_ been the car accident slash suicide they'd put on his death certificate. After a moment, she remembered an old conversation she'd had with Ava about why she didn't like to use her ability too often.

_"I did it once when I was a kid, you know? I went to this shop everyday where there was a waiter I liked. I was, like, fifteen, and he was twenty somethin', so he wasn' at all interested. When I figured that out, I started usin' my mad alien skillz to make him think I was… more _mature_. Closer to his age, an' all._

_ "I came back every day for a couple months, an' every day I fucked around in his head and made him forget he'd eva met me before. He asked me out a few times, and I went – but I _was_ a virgin, so I made him change his mind whenever he tried to get in my pants. And then I'd mind wipe him, so he wouldn't talk about 'the girl he met' to any of his friends…_

_ "But then, one day, I go into da shop an' he… just starts screamin'. He starts cryin' and talkin' about how he's goin' crazy, and how nothin' is what it should be, or whatev. He's starin' at me the whole time, and I'm feelin' kinda bad and kinda freaked out, too, cause – what if somebody figures out dis is my fault? So I wipe him again, an' he falls over an' dies. _

_ "Found out later it was some kinda brain thing. You know, like uh… a-nerve-ism, or somethin'? I ran off before the cops got there, but I never told nobody about it, till now. I was scared they'd hate me for it – although, after everythin' with Zan, I think Lonnie'd probly ah been proud." _

An annurism.

Yeah – okay. That… that kinda made sense, right? You put too much pressure on the human mind, and you make something inside implode.

_So if I can get there just before that final wipe, and get Max to heal him before Tess can try it again…?_

Well… that could work.

After all, she knew the date Alex died by heart, so she had an actual, tangible deadline.

She lifted her pen, and hesitated. The chubby, scowling face of Max's son flashed through her mind, and Liz winced. _I'm sorry, Zan_... she thought, _I'm so, so sorry. _

Under 'Random', Liz wrote: ** May 12, 2000 LAST CHANCE!**

Afterward, she spent a long time staring at the writing, in awe of how much she'd changed with two numbers and three words.

The entry blurred as her eyes teared up, and she silently said goodbye to a boy that no one would remember to mourn. The boy she'd effectively killed, to save another.

"I'm so sorry."

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><p><strong>AN: <strong> Sorry that was so incredibly angsty, but I felt it was important to point out that baby Zan would not exist without Alex dying. Every action Liz has is gonna have some consequence – and though I have not, as yet, planned them all out, I needed her (and you guys) to face that early on. She knew from the beginning she would change things, but she's never actually known anybody who's life would be changed for the worse because of what she's done – like baby Zan never existing, for example.

As a character, Liz is learning what it means to effectively control the world, and I needed her to face the consequences of her choices early on.

Anyway, though – because this chapter is kinda more just to flesh things out than to advance the plot, I should be updating pretty soon.

Thank you guys for being patient with me, and please review!


	5. Chapter 4: Awakening

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: ... Yeah. I'm sorry. I know I suck. But I got a job, and I got really, really into the Game of Thrones series (book and TV). Plus there's been some personal issues, and a writers block several chapters up that I'm desperately trying to get past. I know, I know - that's no excuse, and I'm sorry.

But you know what'd help me be on time from here on out?

Reviews. (:

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><p>Zan woke up slowly.<p>

For a long moment, he felt like he was working his way through thick water. He vaguely remembered the water on Antar being like this; a semi-solid, somewhere between syrup and jello, blood-red like strawberry juice, red like the sun. He used to visit the beach as often as he could just to go float on that water, letting it hold him up and carry him away from the problems and the pressures waiting for him back on shore. The memory had become distant and weak, but Zan knew it'd been important, once.

In this place, Zan wasn't the half-human street kid, or the dead Antarian King. The memories of those lives were both equally out-of-reach; all that existed here was the cool kiss of the water on his skin and the warm, heavy air on his face. And although he could feel the real world calling to him in the distance, he didn't want to leave.

This was the closest feeling he'd ever had to home.

But though he fought it, that call wouldn't be ignored; it pulled at him, dragged him from the thick red water by the scruff of his neck, carrying him unwillingly back towards the life he'd left behind. Back towards the sleeping form of his teenaged, half-human self...

The first thing Zan was conscious of was the ache. It was everywhere, seeping out from his bones, resonating through every muscle and tendon, howling in his blood. Even his _skin_ ached – ached and itched like new skin grown over an old wound. Zan moved his head and the pain caught fire in his neck and knifed down his spine – it was lightning arching between his nerves, burning away what little was left of that peaceful dream world.

He groaned and heard someone walk over.

_Lonnie? _Zan wondered, and then everything came flooding back.

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><p>Sometime in the middle of the night, the crack in the Shell widened, and with a sharp clap split straight down the middle. That split was followed by several others, and before long Zan's unconscious body was covered in a jigsaw puzzle of dull blue fragments. Liz had expected it – the Shell was designed to fall off after it died, but it was technically the first time she'd ever seen it happen.<p>

It looked… really weird, actually; like a sculpture shedding stone skin and turning human. Liz picked one up, and one edge was almost sharp enough to cut her hand, so – to keep them from damaging Zan – she started picking up all the pieces she could find. She reached for one and tugged, but it held stubbornly to the skin underneath, glued there by dry blood. Liz winced and left it there for the minute, instead focusing on the pieces she could easily grab.

After that, she got a washcloth wet with warm water and started to clean him off, gently tugging out the eyebrow ring and the rings in his ears. The Shell had 'healed' the piercings a little, and the jewelry was actually sort of tough to remove. Pulling the metal free of skin that just didn't want to let it go made Liz feel a little sick, but Zan didn't so much as twitch, so Liz got it over with quick enough. She soaked the area around the little Shell pieces that didn't want to come off, and after a while she was able to coax them free.

A few of them still had little shreds of his clothes embedded inside.

The whole process was horribly, horribly uncomfortable considering he was now naked and Shell-less, but she eventually got him clean of blood and debris. She dressed him in the sweats and t-shirt she'd gotten for him, trying awkwardly to keep her mind calm and clinical.

Still – by the time she'd finished, she knew way more about Zan than she'd ever wanted to.

Even after eight years, she'd still known Max's size, so it hadn't been difficult to find things that would work for Zan. Oddly enough, though, they were actually a little big on Zan, even though Liz was positive that these were the same sizes she used to get for her husband.

Liz frowned.

_He grew up on the streets. Did he… did he not get enough to eat?_

After a too-silent moment, Liz shook her head. _Or, you know – in a somewhat less Lifetime scenario – it _is_ possible Max just grew a little after he was seventeen. I didn't start buying his clothes until he was in his early twenties. _

Still, despite the alternative explanation, Liz felt an odd twinge of worry.

As a finishing touch, Liz slid the new pillow under his head and covered him with a blanket. She stood back to get the full effect and almost laughed.

Liz hadn't known - and hadn't actually cared enough to find out - where they sold Zan's kinda clothes, so she'd just grabbed the first things she'd found in his size. As a result, Zan was wearing purple shorts and a white t-shirt with a giant, blood-red cartoon apple being eating by an equally cartoonish, grinning green worm. Above that, in giant black blocky letters, were the words "I heart the Big Apple".

Liz fought back the urge to take a picture.

She headed back to her 'kitchen' – really just a mini-fridge and microwave in a corner under a cabinet – and started pulling out some of the left-over Chinese take-out. Liz heard the sound of cloth moving against cloth and glanced back in time to watch a frowning Zan pull his arm over his face.

For a second, Liz found herself immensely grateful he hadn't woken up just ten minutes earlier when she'd been getting him dressed.

She walked over and sat on the coffee table. After a few awkward, silent minutes, Liz started wondering if maybe she'd been wrong; that he wasn't waking up, just shifting in his sleep or something. Then he started making an odd sound – like… like _keening_. Liz tilted her head, completely confused and uncomfortable.

There was a sheen of tears on his cheek.

Liz froze.

This… this was not her strong suit.

Fighting, building, learning – these were all things she was used to doing. But most of the things she'd had to do in the past decade had required only loose, shallow relationships – and that was only when she couldn't do it alone. She'd had to learn something from a scientist, or find a censored book, or hide a Rebel, and to do it she needed the help of some random person. It rarely lasted longer than a month, and she'd never had to get too close to anybody to do what she needed to do.

But, as a result, she hadn't actually _comforted_ another human being since Max died.

"Um…" She finally settled with. "... You – uh, okay?" Liz winced.

_… Really, Parker?_

Zan pulled his arm down, eyes looking tired and glazed, and glared at her. He was angry, obviously, and that was written all over his face. But behind that, hidden in his eyes and the downward tilt at the corner of his mouth, Liz could also see his grief. Neither of those two emotions were as strong as she'd been expecting them to be. But then again, wasn't the first stage of grief supposed to be denial or something? Shock tended to kinda whitewash a person's emotional state.

… Well, at least it was supposed to. In Liz's case, shock tended to make her angry. Liz used to believe – and honestly, some part of her still did – that there was an order to things, a predictable pattern around which you could base all your plans for the future. When her grandmother'd died, Liz had been surprised and horribly heartbroken, but she hadn't really been _shocked_. Her grandma was, after all, an old woman, and she'd been aware of the fact that it would eventually happen for a long time, even if she hadn't been expecting it to happen quite so soon.

But Alex... Alex was young – like Maria was young, and Micheal was strong, and Max was the King. Like her baby was a _baby_, and none of them were _supposed to die_. It wasn't part of the pattern, wasn't a part of the plan. Hadn't Max even said as much, all those years ago? _You got shot. You weren't _supposed_ to die._

And Liz had accepted that because – well, because she'd believed, deep down, that he was right.

When things like that happened – things that should shock her, the way Zan was shocked… It triggered a rage. Something like that was a symbol that something was _wrong_ with the universe – something was disordered, out of place. Somebody was screwing with the system.

Liz had never liked people screwing with the system.

Zan shifted, and the movement reminded Liz of where she was.

Liz tried to smile and then reached awkwardly out to hold his hand. Zan pulled it back as if she'd burned him, and Liz tried not to be offended. Or hurt.

Of course, the way he hissed at the movement helped, a little.

She leaned back and cleared her throat. Out of longstanding habit, she said, "Hi. My name's Beth."

Zan swallowed a few times and tried to say something. Liz, realizing suddenly that the kid hadn't had any water in a week (ignoring the recycled fluids the Shell'd used to keep him hydrated), ran to the mini fridge and grabbed a bottle. After twisting open the top, she leaned him up and let him drink his fill before she helped him lay back down.

"Where am I?" Zan rasped, obviously still exhausted.

"Oh, uh…" Liz looked around, realizing belatedly how ridiculous that gesture was. She'd lived here for a month and a half; it's not like it was anything she hadn't seen before. She looked back at Zan and smiled. "You're at my place."

_Duh, Liz._ She quietly berated herself. _I think he was looking for a bit more detail?_

But, really, what more could she add that wouldn't totally creep him out?

_You're in my apartment, which overlooks the street where you were murdered – I got this place for that _exact_ reason, actually. If you look out that window over there, you can even see the blood stain on the road!_

Oh, yeah. Because _that _would go over so much better.

"… Why… why 'm I…?" Liz watched him struggle, tears filling up his eyes again, and swallowed back her reflexive empathy. He was only being this open with her because he was still working through some of the chemicals the Shell pumped into his system. For the moment, any really complex thought would be out of reach; control over his emotions would be even harder to find, even in the presence of a stranger. "Why didn' I…"

Zan clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, obviously fighting back a sob.

Liz reached up and brushed the hair off his forehead, and felt an immediate little jab of shock. She hadn't… meant to do that. Hadn't intended to, but that expression – that half angry, all heartbroken look on _Max's face_…

Her hand slid down to cup his face, her thumb tracing his eyebrow, and he leaned into her hand. It wasn't personal; he didn't trust her any more now than he had a moment ago. But, based on the way his eyes remained unfocused when they opened again, he was quickly losing touch with. He was starting to fall asleep again, and he was no longer conscious enough to care who she was or why she was touching him.

He was just instinctively moving towards the warmth.

After a couple of minutes, the frown lines on his forehead faded completely and his breathing evened out. Liz waited until she was sure he was asleep before pulling her hand from his face. Blinking back the tears that had welled up in her eyes, Liz spent a minute staring at the ceiling, trying not to think.

Trying not to remember.

_Max…_

Hours after Zan's brief, emotional return to consciousness, Liz was plugging in a new used TV (VCR embedded – geeze, she'd forgotten they didn't really have DVD's yet) and a radio. She'd left as soon as she'd calmed down – she'd just had to _get out_ for a while, take a deep breath and center herself, ridiculous as that sounded.

Walking in the crowd, Liz had realized just how much time the two of them would be spending together. Of course, she'd already gotten all the necessities – clothes, hygienic stuff and the like – but, quite honestly... Liz had no idea what they were supposed to _do_.

She'd spent _years_ studying how to change the past – every moment had been consumed with working toward that goal. If she wasn't learning, she was finding new places to hide, or looking for equipment, or – every now and then – assisting the Rebellion. The idea of having nothing to do but work and spend time alone with a depressed, teenage Max clone was…

… Terrifying as shit, actually.

So Liz had spent a while going back and forth from the local electronics store. She bought a radio, some CD's, a used TV/VCR, some movies… and, when she'd run out of things to buy, she'd gotten groceries, and a pillow, and a few other random things. She hadn't stopped until she'd realized she was essentially hiding from seventeen year old kid.

Liz went back and found anything she could to keep herself busy, trying to convince herself that she wasn't afraid. But when the sound of movement on the couch almost made her knock over the TV, it a little difficult to argue that fact.

Liz turned and stared at him for a moment, briefly hoping she'd imagined the noise. A couple minutes passed without anything happening, and she was just starting to relax when he moved his arm and mumbled.

Liz could've cursed.

Instead she went in her little makeshift-kitchen and tried to think of what she should do.

Chances were he'd be more awake this time. Awake enough that he'd probably want some kind of an explanation for everything, and – if he remembered – he'd probably be angry she'd tried to comfort him last time. Liz briefly considered just putting the note back on the table and leaving, but that was the chicken-shit route, and she didn't want to give up without even trying first.

_I'll put it down as a definite Plan B, though…_

What would he need, now that he was more awake? Liz tried to imagine it, but all she could think of was that any sane person finding themselves in this situation – as in, on the bloodstained couch of a woman who said she was a time-traveler, instead of at a hospital where _normal_ people went when they got hit by trucks – and freaking out.

Would he... no. No, she was being ridiculous. Ava had told her that the one thing Zan had always prided himself on was his control. Hopefully that meant that he would at least _pretend_ not to be weirded out.

_Weirded out?_ Liz berated herself. _His _family_ just tried to _kill him_. He's gonna be a bit more than just weirded out, Liz. _

Liz glared at the wall, then forced herself to take a deep breath.

_I can do this. I'm _fine_, and I'm not gonna let some sleeping teenager_ _scare me. _

To pass the time, Liz dumped some canned chicken-and-noodle in a bowl and stuck it in the microwave. Waiting sucked, so she a got another bottle of water from the mini-fridge – tap water around here was awful – and brought it over to put on the coffee table.

When it was done, she grabbed the bowl, stuck a spoon in it and started carefully walking back toward the coffee table. It took her a minute to set the bowl down without spilling, but she got it done eventually, and felt a weak surge of pride for the accomplishment.

Liz looked up, straight into Zan's glare.

"Holy – " Liz jumped back, almost knocking over the soup.

She took a deep breath to calm down, then tried valiantly to look cheerful.

"Hey, Zan. Glad to see you're up."

Zan tensed, still not looking particularly friendly. Liz smiled, hoping maybe he was just nervous, but if anything his glare got more intense. Liz stopped smiling and looked down at her hands.

"Where am I?"

Liz sighed lightly in relief. So, he didn't remember the touching. Good.

"You're at my place. I – uh… I live in a loft over a bookstore."

Zan lifted an eyebrow and glanced around. He was obviously still tired, but he was a _lot _more aware this time around. Which… honestly, kinda sucked, and most definitely made things harder for her. He sudden tensed and turned to glare at her again. "How you know my name?"

Liz blinked. Almost blushed, almost stuttered – but luckily, years of experience in lying kicked in. "You told me the first time you were up. You really don't remember?"

Zan stared at her for a moment and then looked away.

"You – er…" Liz tried again. "How're you feeling?"

Zan scoffed. "Like I been hit by a truck. How da fuck would you feel?"

Liz winced. "Oh… yeah. Right, I forgot – er, no. I didn't _forget_, I just… wasn't thinking. I'm sorry."

Zan rolled his eyes, looking somehow both disgusted and a little more at ease. For a moment Liz was actually surprised, and then it occurred to her that she hadn't exactly given a strong first impression. In fact, he was more likely to think of her as a moron than a genuine threat.

Liz tried not to frown.

_That's… good?_

"Yo, how long I been here?"

Liz blinked. Stupidly enough, she hadn't expected that question. "Uh… about eight days?"

Zan's eyes widened just a little, and then his face seemed to just… shut down. He turned to stare at the ceiling, looking tense and pissed off. Liz blinked, shocked at the reaction.

_What the hell? _

_Of everything in that conversation, it was the eight days that bothered him?_

Liz felt the awkward silence lengthen and started to sweat.

"So, uh…" Liz looked around, saw the food on the table. "You hungry?"

Zan didn't respond in any way.

"… Thirsty?"

Again, he didn't even look away from the ceiling. Liz sighed and started fidgeting with her sleeves.

Suddenly, Liz started feeling irritated at her behavior. She was an adult, damn it, and more than that she'd lived through _war_ – lived through the whole God damn world as she knew it coming to an end, even, so why was she letting this get to her? Why wasn't she _acting_ like a damn adult?

Granted, Zan had her dead husband's face. Granted, he was emotionally… _dicey_, to say the least. But so what? He was her mission right now – like going to the past had been her mission. If she could handle everything that had gone along with _that_, then Zan really shouldn't be that big a deal.

_Still… _

Liz sighed and tried again. "I'm guessing you remember what happened? With Lonnie and Rath, I mean."

Liz watched his eyes get a little unfocused as his jaw clenched. She suddenly remembered that, given his earlier 'hit-by-a-truck' comment, the answer to her question was pretty obvious. She wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not that he didn't try to make her feel stupid by bringing it up. "Yeah. I remember."

Watching him, Liz started to try and fit this Zan up with the one she'd built in her mind. Ava had spent so long telling her stories about Zan that Liz'd felt like she knew so much about him; he was bold, dangerous, arrogant as hell, and while he could be sneaky if he really wanted to, he had a temper and didn't like being challenged. Zan defended Ava when Rath and Lonnie went too far. Zan could spend days getting passive-aggressive revenge on anybody who ate his ice-cream. Zan kicked ass at exactly one video game, and for all the others he'd found a dozen ways to cheat.

Those were all bits and pieces of Zan – little things she'd gleaned from Ava over the years, and had meticulously stored in her memory in case, for whatever reason, it became useful. But really, all of that could be broken down to three basic traits; Zan hated losing, hated looking bad, and hated being looked down on. So in a situation where he was surviving completely at the mercy of a stranger, after having people he trusted completely trick him and try to kill him…

_Kinda makes sense he would be a little different, doesn't it?_

Liz looked away and swallowed. "If it makes you feel better, Ava wasn't in on it."

He turned quickly to stare at her. The distance disappeared, and the glare came back, and all of a sudden he was snarling at her.

"How the fuck would _you_ know? Who da hell ya think you are, anyway, spyin' on my crew?"

Liz gaped, struck by the unexpected venom in his tone.

"I remember, ya know. You was at that pizza place, lookin' us ove' when we was eatin'?" Liz blinked in shock – she'd had no idea he'd noticed her, let alone that he'd noticed enough of her that he'd remember, more than a month after the event. Zan saw the memory in her eyes and smiled darkly. "How you gonna explain _that_ shit?"

"How am I –" Liz repeated, confused and overwhelmed. Was he… He couldn't really be blaming _her_ for this, could he? The old, familiar rage bubbled up inside her stomach, and Liz started scowling right back at him. "Why the hell should I have to explain _anything_, Zan? In case you haven't guessed, yet, I saved your sorry ass after your little posse tried to _kill you_!"

Zan flinched, and Liz immediately felt a little guilty.

Of course, the guilt withered when he opened his mouth again.

"Yeah, 'n I'm _sure _you did it 'cause you just a _good person_, right? " Zan scoffed. "Some kinda fuckin' Saint, patchin' up the punk kid for shits 'n giggles?"

"No." Liz said through clenched teeth. "I did it because I needed your help, and I knew I wouldn't be able to get to talk to you until _after_ they tried to flatten you."

Zan's eyes widened in disbelief, and the look he was giving her now was somewhere between confusion and complete disbelief. "You – _what?_"

Liz sighed, and rubbed her neck. She didn't know why she was getting so angry at him – he was just doing what anybody in his situation would do; lashing out at the closest possible target. But something about his tone, about his… whole attitude right now, really, was both familiar and completely infuriating.

But Liz was a grown up, and she was capable of keeping her mouth shut and eyes down when she had to, even if it really didn't feel like it just then. Right now, the most important thing was _not_ to alienate Zan (no pun intended). She needed to stay near him – to protect him – and there's no way in hell he'd let her do that if she pissed him off too much right now.

"…This's about that friggin Summit, ain't it?"

Liz looked up in surprise. Whatever scenario was running through Zan's head was obviously not a good one; he'd tensed up again, but the closed expression on face was… different. Not as openly angry, but somehow more intense. Threatening.

It would have been frightening, if he hadn't been stuck on a couch, wearing a smiley shirt.

"What? No." Liz denied, waving the suggestion off. Zan stared at her for second, probably trying to tell if she was lying or not, before he started to relax again. "Look… this is really difficult to explain, and it's gonna take forever for me to get it all out, so I'll just… give you the outline now, I guess. But you've gotta promise me first that even if you think I'm crazy, you'll accept that I really, genuinely don't want you hurt – for my own purely selfish reasons, of course – and that you won't run out screaming and undo all that effort I put into healing you."

Zan raised an eyebrow, the only outward sign of his interest.

Liz tried to organize her thoughts and, when she had a rough idea what she was going to say, she sat down on the coffee table in front of him. They still weren't eye-to-eye, but it was closer, and she wondered if he was conscious of the way he relaxed a little.

_Maybe it's a power thing? No man stands above the King?_

Liz shook her head and pulled herself back on track. "Okay, so."

Liz hesitated, and realized something. "Oh, you probably don't remember my name, huh?"

Zan rolled his eyes. "No."

"Okay – well, I'm Beth Montgomery, just so you know." Liz took a deep breath and started on her story. "There's this girl, in Roswell, whose name is Liz Parker. This girl just so happens to know your – uhm… Double, right? You know, the _other_ Zan, from the other set of pods?"

Zan tried to hide the surprise on his face, but Liz had spent too long scamming people not to notice. Of course, she'd not only told him she _knew_ he was an alien with that statement – she'd also told him she knew they had a set of doubles, and where they were.

He nodded.

"Yeah, well… His name is Max. And up until last Spring, he and Liz were dating off and on. And then one day, a guy who looked just like Max snuck in through her window. Well, he looked just like him except that he was a little more than a decade older than her Max.

"This Max told her he _was_ the same Max, he just happened to be from the future. He said he came back because Kivar had brought the war to Earth, and everybody they'd loved had ended up dead. He'd used the Granolith to come back, to _change_ what happened – to try and make a better future."

Zan was carefully hiding whatever feelings he had on the subject.

"Of course, it wasn't that simple. He had to prove he was from the future first, and he did. Once he had her convinced, he told her what she had to do to change the future. There were a few… false starts, I guess, but eventually it worked, and Future-Max disappeared. Like, literally – Liz was right next to him, and he just… vanished.

"Years later, everything seemed okay. And then Kivar invaded and killed Max, and everything went to shit. Eventually, all but one of the original eight members of the Royal Four were dead, and the Rebellion against Kivar's forces on Earth was slowly dying out. But Liz had told me about Future-Max, so when I first starting guessing that we'd lose the war, I started looking into it. It took me eight years of constant work and a lot of bastardizing traditional Antarian tech, but I eventually got something I thought would work. I had a lot of Kivar's cronies on my ass, so I hit the 'on' switch and jumped in, and, well…

"Here I am."

Zan's face was completely blank. But his eyes were just a little too wide as he stared at her, and there was enough tension in his jaw to break rebar. It was obvious he didn't believe her. Liz sighed.

"Look, I know how it sounds –"

"It sounds like you missed some meds, bitch."

"But," Liz continued, gritting her teeth against the automatic urge to smack him. "It's true. I came back here with the idea that if I saved you, maybe, with _two _Zan's to lead, things wouldn't get so bad. Plus, I left you a few notebooks in the cabinet with information on – well, on a lot of things. I thought that would be enough and I'd disappear, but since I didn't, well..."

Zan blatantly looked her up and down, looking disbelieving. Liz shook her head.

"Whatever. Look, I'm going to go take a walk - eat some of the soup while I'm gone, okay? You've gotta be hungry by now." Liz stood up and started to walk away, then stopped and looked back over her shoulder. "Oh, and by the way, before you think I'm being dramatic and try to run off, you should know how badly you were hurt."

Liz turned to face him straight on and put a hand on her hip.

"You cracked a couple vertebrae in the accident, broke a bunch of ribs and… like, every bone in your left leg. You dislocated your other leg and broke some bones there, too - and your collarbone broke when the truck tried to bend you in half, which is when your wrist got fucked up. You also had some heavy internal bleeding and a pretty serious concussion.

"That's all been fixed, but it's kinda like getting stitches; if you exert yourself too much, you'll bust 'em open and start bleeding all over my carpet. So for the sake of my sanity, don't strain yourself, okay?" Liz turned and walked out the door.

Liz had known all of the details from his autopsy report, which she'd gotten smuggled through her Rebel connections the minute she'd decided she was going to save him. She'd needed to know if the Shell would fix all of his injuries, which meant it was vital to understand exactly how injured he'd been. Liz had absently copied it into one of her journals to look over later, and had found it when she'd been copying everything down.

Luckily, she hadn't gotten rid of her old journal (she'd figured the 'evidence' wouldn't exist much longer anyway, so why bother destroying it?), so when she'd realized she was staying a little longer, she'd tracked it down and memorized it.

As she closed the door to her little loft, Liz felt another twinge of guilt as she remembered the way his blood had drained, just a little, when she'd listed off all his injuries. She'd been making a point – that he could _and would_ have died without her help – but she still felt bad for rubbing it in his face. Yeah – he'd already known, in theory, that they'd tried to kill him, but it was more than a little obvious it hadn't hit him yet just how close they'd gotten to succeeding.

Swallowing back the sudden lump in her throat, Liz turned and walked away.

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: Before you say anything - _yes_, Zan's being a dick. But come on, guys - he's got good reason. Plus, if he's spent his whole life putting up with Rath and Lonnie, it's not hard to guess that he's got a pretty spiney side to him when he's upset. Don't worry though - he'll get better. Eventually.

Share the love.

Review.

... Seriously.


	6. Interlude

**AN**: Before you say anything, look at the title. This is not a chapter – this is just an important moment in between chapters. Plus, I posted twice in one day, so don't complain.

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><p>Zan watched Beth leave, and then watched the door for a while.<p>

He wasn't really seein' it, or her, or anythin' really. His head just kept goin' over that last paragraph – phrases like 'cracked vertebrea', 'every bone in your left leg', and 'tried to bend you in half' kept goin' in circles 'round his mind, like a creepy-ass carousel.

It didn' really bother him that she told it to him straight; he hadn' really expected any tip-toein' from her, and he wouldn' ah trusted anything sugar-coated. In fact, most days he actually woulda preferred it; it was Zan's opinion that only little kids and losers couldn' take the truth. Today, though, when he was stuck on some psycho chick's couch after his sister and Second tried to off his sorry ass?

Whatev, though - nothin' he couldn' handle. What got him – what made his whole head go fuckin' numb – was the mind-boggling list of crap that was wrong with him. The truck _tried to bend him in half. _He'd broke most of his ribs. Wrist all fucked up. Cracked some _vertebrae?_

… in the accident, she'd said.

_Accident, my ass. _

After a while, he turned his face into the couch, grittin' his teeth when his head throbbed with the movement. Every time he tensed up, his ribs twinged and his back flared. He brought his hand up to rub his face and hissed as scattered needles stabbed his collarbone. Zan woulda considered getting' up, but if everything up top felt like this, how would his leg feel if he moved it…?

_Jesus Christ, man – I can't move without aggravatin' somethin'…_

A dark, even voice in the back of Zan's mind slipped through the calm of shock.

_Rath did this to me. _

An' that levity – that brief, terribly fragile calm that shock had brought him – shattered.

Zan clenched his fist and remembered how _relieved _he'd felt. How fuckin' _happy_ he'd been that Rath had given up on the damn Summit, that he'd had Zan's back when he needed it. It had never even crossed his mind that Rath was just hidin' it, waiting for the right time to stab him in the back.

Zan wanted to get pissed – he wanted to track that rat bastard down and rip his fuckin' guts out – but he couldn' move ah inch without somethin' hurting like a mutha. On some instinctive level, Zan figured Beth prolly hadn' been lyin' about that bustin' stitches thing; he felt like if he tried to stand right now, he'd fall to pieces on the floor. Humpty fuckin' Dumpty.

Despite his ribs, Zan started laughin'.

At least he could pretend the tears was from the pain.

After a while, Zan managed to box up that disturbin', broken giggle. He shoved back the tears, buried the pity, and tried not to think at all.

But his mind wandered back to his family.

He'd always known, deep down, that Lonnie didn't like him. She thought he was pushy and controllin', and if there was one thing Lonnie hated, it was bein' controlled. And really, that was okay, cause he didn' like her ass, either. She was a sneaky, secretive lil' snob and – if he was bein' honest – a part of him had always been a lil' scared ah her. He'd never known just how far she'd go to get what she wanted, and a part ah him had always expected her to try an' take control ah the crew.

But he'd never thought she'd actually –

_I thought... She's my sister. I thought she loved me. _

Zan tried to scoff, but what came out was closer to a whine.

_Love? Ha! Bull_shit_, she does. _

That dark voice came back.

_You da King, Zan – King's ain't loved like otha' people. You shoulda learned that last time, when they stood aside and let that arrogant shit Kivar chop your fuckin' head off. _

_What, was that not enough? What about bein' left in the sewers as a baby? Bein' ignored by da peeps back home, _and _the peeps up here? Our _Protector_ ditchin' us to chill in L.A.? Your family tryin' to kill you?_

_Again?_

_What'll it take till you catch a damn clue, Zan?_

_She's my sister. _Somethin' deep inside kept sayin'.

Zan snarled audibly. When that didn't ease enough of the useless anger, he brought his hand up to fist in his hair – ignoring the hot pains that flared up just about everywhere – and screamed through his teeth. It came out twisted and muffled, but it helped just a little.

_Bitch! _He screamed. _Traitor! _

_How could you do this to me, Lonnie? I took care of you! We were _family_! _

_How could you betray me?_

_Why?_

He kept screaming until he felt empty, breathless, hollow…

Then he put his arm down and fell back into that deep, thick, red water.

* * *

><p>Liz came back half an hour later with a bag, still calling herself all kinds of stupid.<p>

She'd always thought she was an intelligent woman, but she'd handled everything about that first meeting all wrong. Zan was a seventeen year old kid with no parents, no support system at all except for a little family of three other kids, just like him. And two of those three kids – two thirds of the only people in the whole world he'd probably ever trusted – had just tried to kill him. For just a _chance_ that they could go to a planet they probably barely remembered.

Was it any surprise he was little short on trust, these days?

Even under normal circumstances, Liz's story would be hard to swallow. She'd come from the future to change the past – that part was enough to be really, really unlikely. But add on how she'd known she could do it because some girl she'd 'once known' had received a visit from the future version of Zan's cloned alien double, who'd been said girl's high-school boyfriend, and who'd eventually vanished, thereby conveniently removing any actual evidence he'd ever really been there?

_Nice job, Parker. _

Liz stood outside her door and tried to figure out how she was supposed to handle this. How do you earn the trust – or at least the tentative alliance – of a boy as scarred as Zan?

For the first time, Liz regretted spending so long in nearly complete solitude. She didn't know how to form relationships with _normal_ people anymore, let alone…

Liz groaned and rubbed her forehead. It had probably been a mistake to start off by lying to him. Telling him her name was Beth, acting like she _wasn't_ the naive teenage girl who'd loved a boy with his face… In fact, she was pretty sure that had created some major potential for problems down the line, if and when he ever found out about her little, uh – _misdirection_.

But, honestly… she still didn't regret it.

She'd seen so much of Max in him.

Oh, not his attitude. Not his guardedness – although that had strongly reminded her of the time just after she'd made Max think she'd slept with Kyle – and definitely not his tone or his accent. But the way his ear had wiggled just a little when he said certain words, and the way his cheek twitched when he started yelling at her. And that subtle, deeply hidden surge of grief she'd heard in his voice after she told him Ava hadn't been involved.

It was going to be hard enough to ignore her own responses, to ignore the sudden vividness of old memories that had, until recently, been too faded and buried to really affect her. If he ever did anything _really _like Max, Liz might just burst into tears. But if he knew that – if he _knew_ that she'd loved a man with his face so much that she hadn't so much as looked at another man in the eight years since he'd died…

Liz wasn't sure if she was more worried about him using it to his advantage, or him being completely creeped out and convincing himself that he needed to stay as far away from her as possible. One way or another, it was a whole other level added to an already complicated situation, and she just couldn't deal with that right now.

Liz shook her head and gently opened the door.

Zan was still lying where she left him, apparently deeply asleep. Liz put the bag down on the table and sat down next to it, just close enough to Zan to see the splotches on his cheeks – a clear sign that he'd cried.

But underneath the redness, the goatee, and the various piercings… She could see Max.

When Zan was sleeping, he let down his guard. His face relaxed, his chin lowered, he stopped frowning – and in that moment, it wasn't so much about the attitude, or the scars, or the personality at all, even. The face he adopted mostly came down to the genes.

And his genes were Max's genes.

Liz stared for a long time, trying to remember how Max had cut his hair back then, trying to remember whether the scar had been over his left or right eyebrow. Trying to rebuild the forgotten face of the love of her life.

But then Zan started to frown in his sleep, and the little fantasy was disrupted.

This wasn't Max.

This was a boy – just a boy – who'd never known a real family, who'd never fallen in love at the tender age of six, and who'd suffered more in the last few days than Max had in almost his whole life. Max had been betrayed by Tess – but he'd had Liz and Isabelle and Michael and Maria still beside him. He'd given up one child to adoption, and the other had died before he'd ever gotten a chance to hold it – but he'd had Liz, telling him it wasn't his fault and that they'd still have children, some day when it was safe.

The one time he'd gotten really close to death, there were so many people who'd missed him and who wanted him back. All Zan had was a stranger who'd lent him her couch for "admittedly selfish reasons".

Max had always had someone there to help him pick himself back up again.

Zan had no one.

No one but Liz, anyway, and that was only if he let her stick around.

As the frown grew a little more severe, Liz gently reached up and brushed her fingers along his forehead again, trying to soothe the wrinkles. He stilled and turned toward her in his sleep – subconsciously seeking the warmth and comfort that he'd never be comfortable taking while awake. She gently ran her fingers through his hair, feeling a lump form in her throat and tears gather in her eyes

Liz pulled back abruptly, settling her hands on her knees.

If she wanted to make this a better place, she needed to take care of Zan for as long as she was here. She needed to train him to think like a soldier, and then like a King, so that when Kivar came he could _lead_ like a King. And as long as she was here, she would stay by his side and make sure he survived long enough to do it.

This meant that, after years of holding her grief and her rage and her hatred deep inside her heart, of not acknowledging it and simply using it to fuel her plans, her drive… It was time to finally face it all. If she was going to focus on something else, she first had to accept what had happened, and move on.

Liz had to let go of Max, and all that he'd come to represent for her.

She brought her hands up to cover her eyes and let the tears fall. She didn't make a sound – she didn't sob or wail or moan. She just sat there, shoulders shaking silently, for about an hour. Then she got up, walked over to the air mattress in the corner, and lay down.

But for a long time, she couldn't fall asleep.

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><p><strong>AN<strong>: Review. Review, review, review, _review_…


	7. Chapter 5: Dealing

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Yay! I'm past that distant writers block! Headed towards another, but at least I passed the one, right?

Please, please review. I know you're reading, cause people keep subscribing, but nobody tells me anything. I hate to be a whiney brat, but re_vieeeeew_.

Please?

Oh - also, some serious cursing in this chapter, and it's just likely to get worse. I think I may have to up the rating...

* * *

><p>Zan woke up faster, this time.<p>

He wanted somethin' to drink, but more than that, he _really _had to take a leak. He shifted to try and ease the pressure, but that just set off everything _else_ that hurt. Zan winced and looked around for the bathroom door. At about the time he saw it, he also spotted a lump on the air mattress; he could see enough of her face from here to know it was Beth, the crazy lady who thought she was a time traveler.

Zan frowned and looked away. Her bein' a few meds short didn't explain how she knew all that stuff about them. According to their so-called Protector, the only people who knew some of that crap was supposed to be the peeps who cooked up the pods. Course, they did that like, what, fifty years ago? Were any of them even still breathin'?

_They must live longer than humans – that dick Nikolas is proof ah that. _

Gawd, he hated that kid. Even back on Antar, he'd had his head up his ass – which must have made it pretty difficult to kiss Kivar's ass, but he'd obviously found a way. And even Nik – who was apparently playin' Second to Kivar now – hadn't seemed to have any idea there was two sets ah pods sent out.

So how'd she know?

Zan groaned and decided he'd think about it later. He started to pull himself up, but then he heard something fallin' off the couch. He sat up – not too quickly, 'cause his ribs felt like they was gonna break all over again – and looked down to see whatever it was he'd dropped.

By the foot of the coffee table was a little blue… _thing_.

Zan leaned down and grabbed it without thinkin' and a sudden, dull pain throbbed through his collarbone. This wasn' you-_just_-got-yo-ass-kicked pain; this was the way he usually felt after a couple ah weeks (the one time he'd _not _healed himself, anyway). Which… went along with Beth's story, but only proved that she'd used some super alien technology to save him. Not that she was from da future.

So she was either a crazy human lady who knew all the right peeps, or she was a crazy alien lady with money. And, one way or another, she'd be wantin' somethin' from him.

Nobody eva did shit like this fo' free.

Zan fought the pain and pulled his hand up to his face to get a closer look at what he'd picked up. It was blue, an' hard, an' kinda sharp edged. One side was rough and textured, and the other was…

Zan frowned and looked closer.

He'd felt it, but seein' it was different. It looked like what you got when you stuck your hand in clay. If he wasn't wrong… this shit looked like some kinda plastic that had dried against somebody's skin.

"… The hell…?" Zan muttered, and tensed when someone actually responded.

"That's a piece of the Shell." Beth murmured from the air mattress, havin' just now woke up. "Oh – right, I didn't tell you about that, did I? The Shell's kinda like, uhm… a full-body cast thing. It covers your body and puts you into stasis, and then it hijacks the part of your brain that regulates healing. Takes over. Mostly it just does what your body woulda done eventually, but it does it better. It sets bones before it heals 'em, gets rid of anything that's not supposed to be there – that kinda stuff."

Zan looked back at the odd thing in his hand, feelin' a little sick.

"It's Antarian Biotechnology. Brought it back with me –" Beth yawned. When she stared talkin' again, she still sounded half asleep. "Cause there's nothing back here that woulda worked. Sorry 'bout that, though – I thought I got all the pieces after it came off…"

Zan looked back at the dull Shell, eyeing the skin imprint n the back, an' then threw it on the table.

"Yo, that's sick." He turned back to Beth, who opened her eyes and glared at him.

"It _works_. Don't complain."

Zan scoffed and started to push himself to his feet. Outta the corner of his eye, he saw Beth jump up and start toward him, then stop and just stand there.

"Do you – uh…. You want some help?" She asked after a minute. Zan clenched his jaw, hatin' that he had to lean over and grab the coffee table, hatin' even more that he might actually need her help to get to the friggin toilet.

"No."

Zan pushed himself up and started inchin' his way toward the bathroom. His legs really _did_ hurt – especially the left; Zan was afraid every step he took that it would give out on 'im. Fuckin' _ay_, he hated this!

Zan was da man. The King.

He wasn't this weak ass kid who could barely walk.

This wasn't him.

And then his leg started to give, and crazy ass Beth was there, holdin' him up and helpin' him walk, and Zan didn' know what he hated more – him needin' help, or it bein' _her_ that was helpin'.

He caught a look at her expression from the corner of his eye. He sneered and looked the other way. When he got to the bathroom he grabbed the counter in there and pushed Beth back out the door. He didn' look at her.

It was too fuckin' humiliating.

Zan closed the door behind him and turned to look into the grimy mirror above the sink.

His hairstyle hadn't survived the last week, which shouldn't really surprise him, but still somehow did. It hung into his eyes instead, lookin' limp and kinda greasy. There was only about two inches hair had grown out on his chin – which made him think that that Shell thing had kept it from growin', somehow. Beth must have taken off his piercings at some point. There were bags under his eyes, an' his skin was paler than before. There was a new scar along his temple, but it was faded. _Old_.

Zan stared at it for a second, hit suddenly by what that scar meant. What it marked.

_I almost died. _

Then his leg started to shake, and Zan realized he'd been standin' there starin' at the mirror too long; it'd gotten tired ah holdin' him up. In fact, his whole body felt like it was gonna give out on him – for only havin' been walkin' around for a few minutes, he was exhausted. He figured he should prolly finish up in here so he could get back to the damn couch before he passed out.

Only as Zan started to turn did he notice the shirt.

_… No way._

* * *

><p>Liz stared at the bathroom door, expecting to hear the sound of Zan falling at any moment.<p>

_Shit_.

"That went well." She said aloud. Liz breathed out sharply and brought both of her hands up to roughly rub her face. Deciding waiting still sucked, Liz went back to the table and took the bowl of soup – now cold and starting to collect visible little circles of fat – and brought it toward the kitchen table. She told herself it was because, unsteady as Zan looked to be, he'd probably knock it over on the way back.

In reality, it was just something to keep herself from worrying that he wouldn't even make it _that_ far.

Liz sneered at herself and went back to knock on the bathroom door.

"Hey, kid! You want something to eat?" He mumbled something too quiet to hear. "Huh?"

"What the hell am I wearing?" Zan yelled back.

Liz blinked, then grinned as the image of the ever in-charge Zan in that same t-shirt solidified in her mind. When she responded, she didn't bother to hide the humor in her voice. "Oh, come on, kid! It's not _that_ bad. Yellow's a happy color."

Liz could actually hear him growl through the door.

"Whatev." Zan jerked open the bathroom door so suddenly that Beth took a few startled steps back. Zan stood there, leaning on the doorframe, glaring down at her. "An' my name's Zan, not _kid_. Think you can remember that, _Beth_?"

"Sure." Liz mumbled absently, noting the sweat on his forehead and the way his hands were shaking. He leaned away from the doorframe and started to step forward – it didn't take a genius to figure out he wasn't going to make it to the couch by himself. "And did you want some food, or not?"

Liz reached out to grab his arm, and he shrugged her off with a glare. "Not."

Liz rolled her eyes and reminded herself she couldn't force him. If he wanted to be difficult, she could handle that – and just wait for circumstances to show him that he really did need her.

It didn't take long; within a few steps, his left knee buckled.

She barely caught him in time, and for a moment she was all that kept him from hitting the floor. Beth groaned – she was tough, for her size, but Zan (like Max) was all muscle, which made him a lot heavier than he looked. As it was, her legs and back were burning with the strain before he got enough strength back in his leg to start tottering toward the couch again.

Beth struggled alongside him, his arm draped over her shoulders and her own face going a little pink from the exertion.

They finally got to the couch, and Beth – with a strong feeling of accomplishment – helped him sit down. He leaned forward a little, looking down at the floor, shoulders tense and shaking a little…

It wasn't until then that she realized he was quietly crying again. Not like he had the first time he'd woken up – he wasn't making any noise, his jaw was clenched, and his hands were fisted on his lap.

Good, happy feelings dying, Beth sighed and sat down on the coffee table again. While she was busy trying to find some comforting platitude (tossing out '_it's not as bad as it looks'_ immediately, and '_it'll be okay_' almost as quickly), Zan said something quietly.

Liz would have had an easier time hearing him had he whispered. The way he'd said it – calm, controlled, and voice filled with way too many emotions for her to decipher – held so much of her attention, she almost missed the words.

"How could I be so stupid?"

Liz stared – not because that question really shocked her, but just because she hadn't expected him to be that honest about it with her.

She briefly considered trying to comfort him. She decided against it for two reasons, the first of which being that she really didn't think he'd listen to her. Even Max had been incredibly stubborn about these kind of things sometimes, and Ava told her Zan was usually worse.

The second reason was a lot more selfish.

She wanted Zan to be a leader someday, and that meant that this kind of thing might happen to him again. In fact, Liz knew from personal experience that Zan was more likely than anyone else to face future betrayals – he had all the enemies Max did, and none of the allies.

And if she wanted him to survive… she'd have to be honest. Brutally so.

"Because you loved her."

Zan looked up, tear streamed face guarded but… open. For the first time since she'd met him, he was really listening to her.

"Because thinking they could do something like that to you hurt. It was easier to ignore any doubts, to just… tell yourself you were being stupid, or imagining things. It's called denial, Zan, and believe it or not, you're far from the only person who does it."

Zan sneered, unfocused eyes still staring down at his hands. "Other people ain't me."

Liz smiled, but she could feel the twist of annoyance in it. She kept it out of her voice when she replied. "And, what? You're supposed to be special? Well, let me tell you something, Zan – you may have been a King in your last life, or whatever, but you're not the only person in the world that's ever done something stupid and gotten hurt for it."

This time, the sneer was definitely directed at her. "Oh, yeah? Is this the part where you tell me about the big bad future you gonna fix? Or maybe you'll tell me da same thing happened to you, and you know how I feel?"

Liz felt her face go blank at the mockery in his tone, but she reminded herself that he had no idea what he was talking about. He was just lashing out - it wasn't personal.

It didn't really help, though.

"Like you would believe me, anyway. Although, if you want to compare _scars_…"

Liz lifted up her shirt, revealing the long, jagged white scar that made a bee-line from her right hip bone up almost to the bottom of her bottom left rib. "This is the one I got when a Skin killed my baby."

The way the sneer melted off his face as he stared at the scar helped her cage the sudden, roaring rage she'd felt when he'd made fun of her. He had no idea, after all – awful a life as he'd had, he hadn't lived through the war. They couldn't be compared, really - they were on completely different ends of the 'seriously fucked up' scale.

Until this moment, he hadn't really known she was anything more than some crazy woman telling stories.

Still... it'd been surprisingly painful to have her experiences dismissed off hand like that.

"Maybe I'm lying or making crap up out of sheer boredom. Or maybe I'm crazy, and none of what I'm saying is true. You don't have to believe anything I've told you, but don't pretend like you have any idea what I've been through, Zan, because you don't." Liz said, careful to erase all feeling from her voice and expression. Zan's eyes flew back to her face, his expression guarded again, but now lacking that malicious derision. She needed to draw a line here, because even though she needed him, she wasn't going to just stand by and let his pain rot him from the inside out. "I'm sorry about what they did to you, Zan. It was cruel, and fucked up on every conceivable level. But newsflash, kid – they failed."

Zan gaped a little as his eyebrows jumped in shock and disbelief. She could almost see the thoughts going through his head. _'Failed? Look at me – I'm stuck on a couch in some crazy woman's house because of them! In what possible way did they _fail_?_'

"They were trying to _kill you_, Zan. Not hurt you, not rough you up a bit – _kill_ you. And yeah, you're beat up, but you sure as hell aren't dead." Liz leaned forward, keeping her eyes on his. She didn't know where this conviction was coming from, but something inside her was insisting she _make_ _him_ understand this. It felt… important, somehow.

Liz pushed that odd thought aside, and continued. "And whether you feel like you won or not, they failed. They _lost. _You're still here – and in about a week or so, you're going to be as good as new. In fact, by that time nobody in the world will be able to tell they even got as far as they did."

Zan's eyes slid away from hers, but not in avoidance. Something of what she said must have gotten through to him, because he seemed to be completely lost in thought.

Liz considered pushing even more – telling him now was the time to get smarter, stronger, so that when no one would ever be able to do this to him again. One desperate little part of her even wanted to start listing off the things he could change in the future, even though she knew he didn't believe her. But honestly, she was actually kind of surprised he'd listened to her for as long as he had – she really hadn't had enough time with him yet to have earned that kind of trust. And she had a feeling that if she pushed too hard right now, she'd undo all the good she'd just done and push him away.

Eventually, things would have to change. But for now, it was more important that she earn his trust. She couldn't afford to pressure him with her own ultimate goals.

So Liz bit back her advice and stood up, Zan barely noticing her go. He needed to eat; the Shell had used most of his energy along with all of its own in the healing, and he'd get better a lot quicker with something in his stomach.

As Liz looked through the cabinet for some more soup, she felt a surprising sense of relief. So okay – maybe that had been kind of confrontational of her, and maybe he didn't really trust her yet. But he'd _listened_, at least, and he was actually thinking about what she'd said. And that was the best news she'd gotten since she'd woken up on the floor a week and a half ago, wondering why she still existed.

_Maybe I really can do this, after all. _

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><p>The exhaustion was bone deep, and it shoulda carried Zan off into sleep the minute his head hit the pillow. But even hours after his talk with Beth, after eatin' a bowl ah soup and listenin' to Beth lay down and fall asleep on the air mattress, somethin' kept him awake.<p>

For a long time, he wasn't really sure what it was. There was this weird feelin' in the back of his mind, this… _idea_ that hadn't really become an idea yet. He could feel it there, just out ah reach, an' he knew he had to figure it out. It was slippery and unformed, but instinct told him he couldn't let it go.

It was the kinda idea that would change things.

And so for hours he just lay there, goin' over their conversation in his head, waitin' for that idea to clear up. But no matter how long he thought about it, it stayed right where it was, an' when Zan tried to focus on it, he found his mind turnin' its focus on old, unhappy memories.

When Zan was twelve, less than a year after their Protector had made for parts unknown, he healed a friend of Ava's named Jenny. She was a cute enough kid – kinda on the pudgy side, but she'd been mischievous as hell an' at first she'd been welcomed into their little group.

Her mom was a druggie or somethin', and when Ava found out Jenny was spendin' her days wanderin' the city, she invited her to hang with the Four. Within a month, they was closer 'n sisters, and Zan almost never saw Ava 'cept when she was taggin' along behind Jen.

At first, he hadn't minded so much – he had no specific problem with Jen, an' if hangin' with her kept Ava happy, he wasn't gonna argue. But after a lil' while, when they just kept getting' closer, he started to get kinda worried. If Ava kept spendin' this much time with her, how long until she saw somethin' she shouldn't? How long 'for they had Uncle Sam poundin' at they door, ready to cut 'em up and write a book 'bout it?

On top ah that, Zan had started to wonder if there was somethin'… _off_ in 'er head. She kept doin' stupid shit like pickin' fights with cops, stealin' clothes while wavin' at the camera, an' flirtin' with guys twice her age. Worse 'n that, though, was that the more she realized they could handle themselves, the more often she'd start shit and get _them _involved, then sit back an' just enjoy the show.

She _bugged_, but when Zan told the others he was gonna tell 'er to get lost, Ava cried. She'd told him that Jenny didn't have anybody, that she was 'part ah the family now'. Zan hadn't felt the same, but he'd been young and stupid, so instead of puttin' his foot down and sayin' _no_… he backed off an' let Ava have her way.

Then one day Jenny showed up lookin' like somebody took a tire iron to her face. She'd been laughin' an' cryin' when she got there, even though da whole left side was almost black an' swollen. Ava started cryin' again, so Zan healed her. Lonnie'd watched quietly from the back ah the room, lookin' half pissed and half curious.

Ava an' Rath disappeared the next day, an' Zan'd just about blown a fuckin' fuse. They showed up later that night, covered in blood and jittery as shit, an' it had taken Zan almost an hour to get 'em to tell him why.

Rath had actually _liked _Jenny. His issue was with adults and aliens, and Jenny had actually stood up for him when some dick mall cop had shoved him into a wall. So when him an' Ava finally got the story outta Jen, they'd gone to confront Jenny's mom's boyfriend – the dude who fucked her up. Ah course, the douchebag hadn't taken well to a couple kids gettin' involved, and he'd decided to teach 'em a lesson.

An' Rath threw him into a wall so hard, the back ah his head exploded.

There was a lil' trouble after that, but they sicked Ava on it an' it went away easy enough. Still, they had to be sure Jenny wasn' gonna say nothin', so she lived with the four of them for a while after that. Lonnie hated havin' her around, an' at the time, Zan had thought it was 'cause she was competition – like Jenny was gonna take the rest of 'em away from Lon or somethin'. But thinkin' back an' knowin' what Zan knew now, Zan doubted that was the reason.

Vilandra had never cared that much about the rest of them.

Zan frowned, thinking it over.

It was prolly just 'cause Jen was crazy. You could tell 'er to do somethin', an' maybe she would – or maybe she'd spot a bracelet she wanted to steal, and she'd do that instead. Threats, pleas, _laws_ – none ah that really scared Jenny. Shit, _nothing_ scared Jen; mentally, she was expectin' to get in trouble whether she did somethin' wrong or not, so she felt free to do whatever the hell she wanted to.

Which meant there wasn't anything Lonnie could do to manipulate her, short ah bribery – an' even that didn't always work, 'cause Jenny never wanted the same things from one moment to the next.

Lonnie made Jenny miserable whenever she could, an' Rath – stuck between his girlfriend/boss and his friend – eventually decided to disappear for a while. Ava, in a rare burst of confidence, had tried to stand up for Jen, but Lonnie hadn't had any trouble puttin' her down.

Zan got involved only when Lonnie went too hard on Ava – he didn't wanna be a dick, but he also didn't want Jenny around. The healer in him was pretty friggin' sure Jen was psycho – not Ophelia givin'-out-flowers kinda psycho, but Linda Blair, pea-soup kinda psycho – an' every minute she spent with his crew was a risk. He'd felt bad for her an' all – it was obvious she'd had a fucked up life – but he was the Duke, an' the safety of his crew was all that could matter to him.

He'd figured if he left her to Lonnie long enough, she'd get tired ah them and leave.

He hadn't expected her to suddenly start breakin' shit with her mind.

For whatever reason, she didn't blame Lonnie for bein' a bitch. In his obsessive moments, Zan had wondered if that was 'cause ah her mom – like maybe she didn't blame that dude for beatin' her, she blamed her mom for not steppin' in. Or maybe it was just the kinda random, crazy shit Jenny did sometimes, but about a week after shit started happening, she hit Zan over the back of the head with a lead pipe an' dragged him off somewhere.

For the next couple ah days she'd left him tied up to a chair somewhere underground. She'd come in and rant every now an' then, talkin' about how the other three were lookin' for him with no idea Jenny had been the one to take him. She'd hit him with random shit every now and then, an' after a while she started tellin' him about how she'd killed the others. Lonnie first, then Rath, then Ava, one at a time when they was least expectin' it.

'Course, even then he'd known she was probably talkin' out her ass. But considerin' she'd gone nuts and kidnapped him, he figured she was still capable ah doin' it fo' real if he didn't stop her. He'd kept tryin' to get away, but he wasn't seein' straight – figured he probably had a concussion from the way she'd hit him, an' it was messin' with his abilities.

When she said she'd got Ava, he'd already been there for a few days. Whatever it was that had held him back before had obviously fixed itself, 'cause when he snapped the ropes fell away.

He blew her into a wall hard enough to knock her out, an' ran. Thinkin' back, that was stupid –New York City's a big place, an' even though he'd lived there his whole life (all twelve years of it at that point), he hadn't ever seen more than just his little area. Which… he wasn't in. He'd had no way of knowin' for sure where he was goin', but luckily he'd found a familiar neighborhood, which'd led him home. Eventually.

Half ah him had expected to come back to a bunch ah corpses – and if that had happened, he woulda gone back to rip that bitch to pieces. But they'd been fine, and they'd been completely shocked to hear what Jenny'd done.

She'd neva come back after that.

Some part ah him had wanted to argue when Beth said Rath and Lonnie'd failed. He'd wanted to tell her that, yeah, maybe they hadn't killed him – but he'd lost everything. His family, his home, his ability to walk across the fuckin' _room_ without fallin' over. He might as well be dead, right? Sure as shit couldn' call this livin'.

But then he remembered Jenny, an' that sewer, an' the way he'd felt then. When he was tied up in there, he'd been helpless and alone. He kept waitin' for Lonnie and Rath to show up, but they neva' had. And after he'd gotten loose and gone home, he'd been jumpy for months – checkin' every shadow and wakin' up in the middle of the night scared shitless. There was only one second in that whole fucked up time that he'd felt better – that he'd felt _in control._

And that was when he'd watched Jenny go flyin' into the wall.

Eventually, he'd started thinkin' ah that moment every night before he went to sleep. He thought of how it'd felt, throwin' that energy at her through the air, watchin' it hit, watchin' her fly. And no matter how disturbin' it was, it helped him remember who he was.

Maybe he was weak enough to get caught, but he'd been strong enough to get loose, too. He was _the Duke_, and no matter how he got pushed down, he always got back up. Pain made him stronger, fear made him smarter, and surprise taught him what it meant to be ready fo' anything.

The idea finally came together, an' Zan smiled.

So – in a week he'd be 'good as new', huh?

Beth might be crazy, but she had been right. They'd failed. They shoulda killed him when they had the chance, because now he knew what they wanted and how far they'd go to get it. Now, he was ready. And the next time he saw those two, they better watch they fuckin' backs.

Zan always paid his debts.

He closed his eyes as the exhaustion washed ova' him again, and he fell asleep to memories ah blood and pipes and long, white scars.

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><p><strong>AN<strong>: Next chapter should be up soon. …Relatively. And keep in mind that Zan's gonna keep being an ass for a while - trust issues don't get fixed overnight. Not for real, anyway.

Also, for those of you that think Liz should have been gentler on him... Well, I know some people with trust issues. And some of them, yeah - you do have to handle them with kid gloves. But I also know a couple who really hate anything they think resembles a patronizing tone - which includes sugar coating just about _anything_.

I kinda picture Zan being one of those people, for some reason. But if you still think that's unrealistic/badly written, review and tell me why. I promise I won't take it personally, and that I'll seriously consider whatever suggestions you have.

See you guys next time.

P.S. Review. It's easy. There's a button just under this for it and everything. (:


	8. Chapter 6: Broken

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Okay, so… despite my delay, I'm actually really into writing this story right now. I just happened to've been rewatching Roswell, and I caught onto something I can add into the plot later on. This means I've been revamping stuff further down the line, and it's kinda caused a cascade effect of stuff I want to add back here. So even though it'll be a while, be assured I intend to keep posting.

Also, I just wanted to lay a few things on the table that not everyone will like.

Thing number 1: I don't hate Tess. I don't like her _at all_, but I don't hate her. I think she was a kid whose only family was a psycho shape-shifter with an agenda, and he raised her to follow a specific set of guidelines. That's called _brainwashing_, ladies and gents, and it's not really the fault of the brainwash-ee.

What makes me so sure the brainwashing was the only reason she was a bitch? Oh, just a minor detail named _Ava_, who happens to have turned out just fine.

Thing number 2: I don't really hate Lonnie either, even though she's seriously messed up. After watching the third season and seeing that Vilandra never actually had genuine feelings for Kivar, I'm actually pretty certain that something went wrong when they made up her DNA cocktail. I think somehow they got her mentally stuck in those last few days of her life when Kivar had her under that weird, emotion-warp thingy. It's my _opinion_ that she's psychologically incapable of loving anyone _but _Kivar because of that.

Either that, or something about growing up on the streets turned her into a psychopath, which is an just as interesting, but isn't going to be the case in this story.

Thing number 3: I'm not going to pair Ava with Zan. Why? Because I'm personally not a fan of the pairing. Oh – don't get me wrong, I love both Ava and Zan, I just happen to think that Ava's got a serious complex about Zan, and Zan's way too used to thinking of Ava like the pathetic little kid he has to protect, and neither of those things are likely to lead to a healthy romantic relationship.

Final thing, otherwise known as thing number 4: I'm upping the rating. The cursing all by itself is getting kind of out of hand, and I'm also going to include some more graphic stuff later on. For now it'll just be T+, but eventually I may go as high as M.

Enjoy the update!

* * *

><p>Zan woke up with a start an' pushed away the dreams.<p>

Ever since… well, ever since he'd _died_, he hadn't been able to close his eyes for even a second without seein' the same shit over an' over. The ball, the hands, the headlights… The sound ah that truck horn kept screamin' in his ears, an' he kept smellin' gasoline, even when he was awake. Weirder stuff showed up in the dreams, too – twisted, broken versions ah people an' things…

Zan brought his hands up to scrub his face, an' thought about what he'd do to Rath an' Lonnie later on, how he'd slide into a room behind 'em quietly so they wouldn't hear, an' say 'Miss me?' An' then he'd throw Rath into the wall the way he'd thrown Jenny, an' they'd beg him not to hurt 'em. They'd lie an' say they was sorry, an' he'd tell 'em he didn't care.

An' even thought it was stupid an' all in his head, it helped push back the nightmares.

He hadn't realized the shower was runnin' at all until it stopped. A few minutes later Beth strolled out wrapped up in a towel. Her hair was still damp, pushed over the one shoulder. Zan had a weird lil' flashback of her at the pizza joint, hair slidin' down over that same shoulder, an' he forced back another blush.

She saw him starin' at her from the couch and froze.

"Oh. Hey, Zan." She said after a second, a confused smile on her face. "I didn't expect you to wake up this early."

Zan looked away and cleared his throat. "Yeah – sorry."

_… Wait, what? _

_Why the fuck are you sorry, you moron? _

Zan closed his eyes an' brought one hand up to pinch the bridge ah his nose. It was an old habit he'd spent a long time tryin' to get rid of. Apparently, it hadn't stuck. "Uh – I mean, I'm… feelin' better."

_No shit, Sherlock._

Zan grit his teeth against the self-rebuke an' decided to push past the horribly awkward moment. "You got anythin' to eat?"

But when he looked at Beth, she was starin' at him with wide eyes. He raised an eyebrow an' felt his shoulders go stiff as he waited for an answer that never came. Finally, impatient with her starin', he hissed a defensive, "What?"

Beth blinked, her jaw fallin' just a little before she seemed to snap out of it. "Oh. Sorry. You just – with the nose pinching thing – you kinda… reminded me of someone..."

Another awkward lil' silence, an' Beth blushed. Zan looked away, kinda afraid he'd start starin' again. "Oh! Um, I was going to ask you – do you want to rent a movie or something?"

Zan blinked. "A movie?"

"Yeah – I was thinking maybe Fight Club and a couple others?" She asked with a smile, shruggin' one shoulder in a way that made Zan really, really nervous. That towel didn't look anywhere near secure enough for that. "I mean, I'm betting you're getting pretty bored just having to sit around and all..."

Zan stared at her for a minute, then smiled. If he was bein' real honest, he wasn't sure how much he really felt like smilin', it just felt kinda rude not to respond to her cheerfulness somehow. "Yeah, sure. Why not? Ain't got nothin' else to do…"

Beth beamed, an' Zan swallowed, kinda surprised by how young she looked with that expression. "Great! Alright, so – I'm going to get dressed, and then when you're ready we can head out, okay?" Beth walked over to her bag an' bent down to grab some clothes. Zan blinked an' quickly looked out the window.

"Aight." He muttered back, voice a lil' higher than it shoulda been. He cleared his throat.

He heard the bathroom door close again an' turned back around. Beth wasn't visible, so she'd obviously gone inside.

Zan groaned and slid back down into the couch.

"_Jesus_, Beth." He whispered, hands rubbing roughly over his face. "If that towel was any shorter, I'd know you _way_ betta' than I ever wanted to..."

* * *

><p>Ava hadn't expected to like this Liz chick.<p>

When Lonnie an' Rath had told her about the picture they'd found in Zan's double's sock drawer (and, damn, how obvious was _that_?), she'd expected the girl to be a total skank. Those were usually the types Zan hooked up with – girls with hooker boots and a mad hard-on for bad-boys.

But the girl'd turned out to be crazy nice. After Ava'd decided not to go back to New York, she'd caught Ava sleepin' in the alley, an' she'd invited her in – into her _home_, like Ava was somebody she'd known all 'er life or somethin'. When Ava'd woken up screamin', images of that truck rollin' over Zan, an' her just standin' there like an idiot watchin'… watchin' him die…

Liz'd ran into the room an' _hugged her_. Hugged 'er like she was _family_. Crew. The way Zan woulda done, had he been here. Had Lonnie an' Rath not murdered him, pushed him into da street while she just stood there an' watched…

So even though she was jealous as hell that this chick's man actually loved 'er _back_, she couldn't help but be kinda in awe of her. Nobody had ever done somethin' like that for Ava…

Nobody but Zan, anyway.

"Zan was stubbo'n..." Ava continued, pushin' away the tangent her brain had gone off on. The tangent she hadn't _stopped_ goin' off on since… since Zan... "Strong. He put up a wall, an' you just couldn't get through. He always had to do everythin' right – to be _perfect_. He was like that, right up until…"

_Until he died._

_Until they killed him. _

_Until I stood by, an' just watched._

"You musta loved him a lot." Liz said after a pause, soundin' wistful.

"Yeah." Ava tried to smile back, but she couldn't really do it. "Not sure he ever really loved me back, though."

"Why?" Liz replied immediately, lookin' a lil' disbelieving. Ava felt kinda flattered by that look – it was like Liz thought Zan not lovin' Ava was crazy. Ah course, she only thought that cause she hadn't known Ava long, an' cause she'd never get the chance to know Zan.

Ava decided not to say any ah that, though – it sounded way too much like self-pity, an' Zan wouldn't have approved. "Just a feelin'... It always felt like he was waiting for someone else to walk into his life."

Ava's eyes slid from the countertop to Liz's soft face.

_Was he waitin' for you?_

She looked back down, an' propped her head on her hand.

Even if he had been, Ava wasn't sure she'd mind. Liz was the kinda girl that helped people. That brought 'em into her house even when they were strangers, that fed 'em and hugged 'em when they woke everybody up in the middle ah the night. Liz wasn't the kinda girl who woulda just watched people kill somebody. Not when she coulda fought back, coulda _done something_. She wasn't the kinda girl who'd just drive off with his murderers, actin' like nothin' had happened…

Zan'd deserved a girl like Liz, really.

But all he got was Ava…

Ava swallowed an' pushed all that away, pastin' a paper-mache smile on her face an' changin' the subject. "So what about you? How'd you find out about Max? He just haul off an' drop the bomb on you one day?"

"No..." Liz looked ova' towards the back ah the restaurant an' pointed. "It was right over there. I was working, and uh… he was sitting at that booth, and… someone brought in a gun, and it kinda went off, and I got shot. I was dying, but Max brought me back."

"… He brought you back?" Ava echoed, her elbow slidin' slowly off the counter without her even noticin'.

_No way._ Ava thought, a hundred old regrets swimmin' back into her mind. _I heard you wrong – I gotta have heard you wrong. Say you meant somethin' else, he didn' heal you, he –_

"Yeah." Liz glanced at Ava, obviously havin' noticed Ava's face change or somethin' cause she looked a lil' bit freaked. She turned away an' took a sip ah her hot chocolate, an' Ava stared, tryin' to find somethin'… _off_. Somethin' wrong.

There had to be somethin' wrong. There _had_ to be. She'd been healed – brought back by aliens, an' that kinda shit was supposed to change somebody. Make 'em bad, make 'em evil. That had to be what happened – that had to be it, or else…

Or else Zan was right, an' Jenny'd just always been a killer.

Ava looked away from Liz after a moment, lookin' back at the counter top. More than ever, she just wanted Zan back. She didn't know what to do now – didn't know what to think, an' she needed him. She needed him to tell her what to do.

But he was dead, now.

And she was all alone.

* * *

><p>Lonnie stretched out in her hotel bed next to Rath, pretty friggin' comfy despite the ugly-ass décor. She didn't think she'd ever actually spent a whole night in a bed this nice; the stuff they could make just didn't <em>feel<em> right. The molecules didn't settle naturally or somethin', 'cause there was always somethin' wrong with an alien made bed. An' really, how was you s'possed to get a friggin' mattress down into da sewers, huh?

It was kinda like food, actually. Usin' powers always did… _somethin_' to the taste. Just cuttin' it or something wasn't so bad, 'cause all you had to do was pull the molecules away from each other. Heatin' it up or freezin' it always meant fuckin' with the energy inside it, an' that made it nasty.

Lonnie's eyes narrowed.

Course, if they'd just made they own money, they coulda bought all that shit, an' a decent place to put it in besides. She'd told Zan that, but he hadn't really listened. He said it wasn't _safe_ – that they couldn't afford to draw that kinda attention to themselves.

He'd always been controllin' an' arrogant. This life or the last – it didn't matter, the prick thought he was god's gift to da universe, an' nothin' she or anybody else had to say made a difference. He was the _King_, wasn't he?

Lonnie sneered in the dark an' rolled to one side.

She hated him.

_God_, she hated him.

Lonnie's sneer became a grin as she remembered the look on his face when she'd told him off in Roswell. Oh, sure – it wasn't really _his_ face, not the brother she'd had for some thirty years before mother-dearest had ditched their asses on this backwater, disgustin' lil' planet, but it was close enough. An' for the first time, she'd actually gotten to lay it out for him – tell him how she'd felt all her life, while he an' they pops'd carefully planned out every miserable moment of her future without even _askin' _her what she wanted.

They'd even engaged her to _Rath_ – the half-breed street-kid 'er father'd 'adopted' years before. Back then, she hadn't really cared; she'd even kinda liked Rath, an' she'd figured it'd be betta' than tyin' the knot with some stranger. Rath mighta been the bastard son ah some mystery member of one of the High Families, but he was a decent enough guy, an' he'd never hurt her. That was better than what ended up happenin' to a bunch ah her peeps, so she'd been aight with it.

But that'd been before she met Kivar.

Before she'd known real love.

Before he'd shown her what a slave she really was to her family.

An' yeah, so maybe he'd had to mind-warp 'er to do it – but she _just wouldn't listen_ to him. He'd _had_ to do it, to free her from Zan's manipulative lil' plans. She knew that now, even if she hadn't understood it back then.

Lonnie glanced at Rath to make sure he was still asleep (which, obviously, he was – Rath was a deep sleeper no matter the planet), before silently slippin' outta bed an' grabbin' some change. There was a payphone around the corner – she'd call Nik and get the 411. She'd tell Rath in the mornin' that she'd worked shit out, an' if anything she didn't think he'd like came up… well, he didn't have to hear about it. He'd believe whatever she told him, anyway.

After years of subtle little pokes an' prodes, Lonnie'd finally gotten Rath right where she wanted him. It hadn't been that hard – Rath had neva' really been the deepest guy. He wanted things, predictable things, an' all you really had to do was give them to him (or at least make him think you _wanted_ to) an' he'd trust you with his life.

The most difficult part had been gettin' him _not _to trust anybody else. Zan was pretty simple – he did most ah the work just by bein' his self. There was nothin' that bothered Rath more than bein' treated like he didn't matter, an' that was the only thing Zan'd ever been really good at.

Ava… Ava'd been harder. She'd spent years workin' on that, slowly workin' lil' ideas into his head. _Our Protector really liked Ava_, she'd say, an' Rath would hear _Our Protector liked her more than you. Maybe _she _did somethin' to make him leave?_ Jenny'd helped, actually, 'cause Rath'd really liked the lil' freak. After everythin' that happened, Lonnie spent a long time sayin': _It wasn't your fault, Rath. She trusted Zan, an' she loved Ava, an' they both let her down, y'know?_

It never woulda worked, if he'd've remembered they last lives. Rath – the real Rath, back home – had been tight with Zan. Tighter than brothers, actually, and if he'd remembered what she did, there's no way he'd ever've forgiven her. He wouldn't have ever understood.

Nobody'd ever really understood her.

Nobody but Kivar.

Lonnie slid the money into the payphone, dialed the number, and waited four rings before Nikolas answered.

"… Jesus, _what_?" He snapped sleepily, an' Lonnie grinned.

"Aw. Somebody miss their nap?"

"Oh, shut up and just tell me if you're coming."

Vilandra leaned against the wall, lookin' out through the garish orange lights. She hated dives like this – she never woulda stayed in a place this low brow back home. She'd been a friggin' _princess_, an' nobody woulda dared make her sleep here.

This time around, it was a fuckin' _luxury_.

"Yo, I told ya I'd handle it, didn't I?" Shit, she'd chipped her nail polish. When'd that happen? She propped the phone up on her shoulder and used the other hand to fix it. "Zan didn't work out, though. The other Zan – this cornball kid from Roswell named Max – he's comin'."

"… Max?" He said after a second, soundin' pretty gritty.

_... That's interestin'. What crawled up ol' Nik's ass all of a sudden?_

"Yeah. Him."

"Get rid of him. Keep working on Zan." Lonnie scowled. Was he givin' her _orders_ now? Pipsqueak, over-inflated lil'… He was only the heir of a lesser Family, an' he wouldn' even ah been that if his half-brother hadn't have died in a 'mysterious fire'.

_So very cliche, Nik._

Still, though. He might be an uppity little loser, but she needed him. For now.

"Ain't an option, short-stuff." She said calmly, upper lip curlin'. "Zan's outta da picture. Permanently."

Nikolas went real quiet. "… What?"

"He's dead, Nik." Lonnie sneered, an' thought back on the moment it'd happened. She'd made Rath do all the work, but god had she enjoyed herself, watching Zan get smeared into the asphalt. "They'll have to scrape his ass off the street with spatulas."

"You –" Nik sputtered. "You killed him? What kind of an idiot are you, Vilandra? We needed him at the Summit –"

"We _don't_ need Zan." Lonnie hissed. Took a breath, forcing back the red haze. "We've got Max. He's clueless. He'll do it."

Nikolas went quiet again. When he started talkin' again, his voice'd gone ice cold. "You'd better hope this works, Lonnie. Kivar was _very specific_. One of your brothers _will_ come to the Summit. Or you spend the rest of your life on Earth."

Lonnie's jaw clenched around her response. She hated his tone. She hated how sure he was of himself, even while laying out threats against a soon-to-be Queen. She hated everything about him, but more than anything else, she hated that he spoke for Kivar.

Why did _he _get to be Kivar's right hand, when Lonnie couldn't even go home without proving herself to him? _Again_?

Lonnie blinked away the sudden rush of tears.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on, opie." She sniped. "He'll be there."

"You'd better hope _Max_ feels the same way."

The dial tone hummed in her ear, an' Lonnie slammed the payphone back into its place.

"Yeah, well fuck you too, Nik." She snarled, and turned back toward her hotel room. At least there, lyin' in bed next to Rath, she could pretend that she was home fallin' asleep next to the man she loved.

With one hand wrapped around the doorknob, she hesitated. Pressin' her forehead against the wood, she pictured his face for a moment. All the soft planes an' subtle colors – the eyes she'd never gotten tired ah lookin' at. But after seventeen years away from him, his face was startin' to fade…

"I miss you, Kivar." She muttered, voice clogged with tears. But then she reached for that certainty, that determination that'd carried her through all these years, an' shoved the tears down, down into that gaping hole inside her. She needed him, she loved him, she couldn't live without him…

She leaned back, eyes narrowed an' unfocused, an' muttered, "I'll be home soon."

Lonnie silently cracked open the door an' slipped inside.

* * *

><p>"… No friggin' way."<p>

Liz frowned. "Zan, it's –"

"_Hell_ no."

"Why not?"

"Are you shittin' me? There ain't no way I'm watchin' that dumb ass movie. No."

"Oh, really?" Liz smiled poisonously. "Well, one – I happen to like this 'dumb ass' movie. Two – there's no way in hell I'm going to put on the other two if you won't let me watch this one. So either we can sit here staring at each other in silence for the rest of the evening, or you can suck it up, be a man, and watch _10 Things I Hate About You_."

"No. Way. In. Hell." Zan snarled stubbornly.

Liz stared at him for a moment in silence, then sighed. "Okay, well, if that's how you feel." She set the video tapes on the dresser and started looking through CD's. "It's really a pity, too, cause I have a feeling you'd really like _Fight Club_. Guys beating the crap out of each other, burning their hands with this acid soap stuff –"

"What're ya doin'?" Zan asked weakly, starin' at the CD Liz had taken.

Liz glanced down at the Britney Spears disk she'd grabbed – a favorite of Maria's back in high school that she'd bought for purely nostalgic reasons. "Oh. I figured since we weren't going to be watching any movies, I could just –"

"_Fuck_ no."

Liz blinked exaggeratedly. "… Oh, Zan – do you not like my music?"

Zan glared.

Liz smiled innocently. "Oh. Well, I am sorry about that, Zan, but I really need some sound, and since it's my stereo and all…"

Zan's glare darkened.

"If only there was something else we could put on for background noise for a while." Liz's smile morphed into a smirk. "Like a movie, or something."

Anybody else might have been a little scared of Zan's expression, but Liz just kept smirking. After a long moment of silence, she sighed again.

"You know, it's been a while since I've listened to this. I may just have to play it over and over for a while so I –"

"Fine."

_Ha. I win. _

Secretly grateful, Liz shoved the CD back into the pile. Honestly, she didn't want to hear that music all that much more than Zan did. But _he_ didn't know that, did he?

Zan tolerated her movie with only the occasional snarky comment. _The Sixth Sense _was a little better – it got more sarcasm, but Liz could tell he enjoyed it anyway.

Just as she predicted, he was an instant fan of _Fight Club_.

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: A little random fun before the real action gets started. If I'm right about my estimated time line, all three of those movies shoulda been new releases the year Zan died. If you have any questions, ask, and so long as they aren't spoilery, you will have your answers.

Review. It's easy. There's a button just under this and everything.


	9. Chapter 7: Dreaming

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Sorry about the delay in updates. I'm having a hard time keeping the characters canon. I'm trying to rectify that, as well as add everything that needs to be added for future plot development. I managed to get a few pages how I wanted them, and thus I had just enough space for a decent update.

Also, before we start I want to clarify that I'm not condoning how Max acted during the arch where Alex died. But I'm also not really mad at him. He was grieving, and lonely, and a_ seventeen year old boy_. I feel like it's a little unrealistic to expect him to behave perfectly, given all of that.

That being said, I really suck at writing him.

Apologies in advance. (:

* * *

><p><em>Hands grabbed his back and shoved him to his knees on the asphalt. Zan looked up to find himself kneeling in front of Lonnie; she smiled down at him, popping the gum in her mouth and rolling a basketball between her palms. <em>

_Zan wanted to scream and curse and demand answers, but his voice was caged somewhere under his ribs. The hands on his back and arms and wrists were all Rath's, there to hold him in place, keep him helpless. Zan glanced back, wantin' to snarl somethin' at him, but the words stuck in throat. Rath was a disfigured tangle of arms and smiles, his head a faceless lump atop the mass. _

_He was simply the instrument; the murderer stood before him, wearing Zan's own crown. _

_Lonnie bent down to look him in the eye and grinned – her gleeful, coal-slathered eyes just a little too wide to be sane. She reached out and laid a hand against his cheek. _

_"Aw, why the long face, bro?" _

_Lonnie's hair began to grow darker, and then shortened into gelled up spikes. Coarser hair sprouted out of her chin as her jaw and cheekbones sharpened. The fingers against his cheek gained callous, and petite shoulders became masculine. A form-fitting t-shirt and jeans shifted into more familiar attire. Her body seemed to stretch out in almost every direction... _

_And suddenly, Zan was looking into his own face. _

_The other him – crowned and still grinning that odd, demented smile – leaned in a little closer. Zan watched as blood foamed at the corner of his lips like froth. A few pops, and his double's shoulder folded inward, one leg bent to the side, and his rib-cage caved in. Sick and horrified, Zan looked back into his double's eyes – one of them now purple and swollen over... _

_"You look like you seen a ghost." It wheezed, still smiling. _

_His double closed his eyes and started to laugh; quietly at first, but then louder and louder until the sound echoed all around him. Just when Zan thought he couldn't take that choking laughter anymore, his double disappeared, and in his place the growing headlights of a truck – _

Zan jerked awake with the shrill scream of a horn still sounding in his mind.

At first, he thought he was on his couch in the little underground tunnel the Four had made into their home. But even in the dark, he could tell that the ceiling was too close, and the wall was on the wrong side, and nothin' about the place felt familiar.

An' then it clicked, an' Zan remembered Beth and the lil' loft, an' the world tilted back into place around him. But it wasn't home, an' Zan had the sudden, freaky feelin' that the walls were watchin' him – eyes in the dark corners, hands just outta sight.

Zan looked around, blinkin' to get his eyes used to the dark, but even when he could see through the shadows, that damn feelin' wouldn' go away.

Beth was in the corner, passed out on the air mattress. It was one ah the first times he'd ever seen her sleep, an' if it hadn't felt like the walls were closin' in on him, Zan mighta taken advantage ah the chance to really look her over.

But as it was, he couldn' breath.

Zan sat up, sucked in a gulp of air. The shadows _pulsed_.

"Fuck this."

He pulled himself to his feet, swept his hand over his clothes to change 'em into somethin' more his taste, an' silently let himself out.

* * *

><p>Liz woke up less than two hours after she'd fallen asleep with the distinct feeling that something was different.<p>

Once upon a time, that feeling would have scared her, but these last few weeks had done a lot to ease her fear of change. Traffic, groups of people laughing or shouting, the distinct _lack _of the scrubbers' hum – it was all different to her, and they were all changes for the better. Still, that didn't mean Liz had lost all her old instincts, and for a couple of seconds she kept her eyes closed and her breathing even as she tried to figure out what was wrong.

She could hear the distant sound of cars, which had became such a constant of her new life that she immediately ignored it. The pipe that went through the wall behind her bed creaked – as it often did, and so she ignored that too. Even the muffled sound of shouting outside wasn't unusual this early in the night.

So what was different?

It took her several seconds to realize she couldn't hear Zan's breathing.

Liz's eyes popped open and she sat up so quickly her head spun, but it was instantly obvious there was no one but her in the apartment. The couch was empty, blanket and pillow still mussed, and the bathroom door was just open enough to see that Zan wasn't in there.

Liz jumped up and spun around; a pointless gesture, considering there was really only the one place he could've gone where she wouldn't have already seen him: outside.

Liz ran to the door and jerked it open, but the stairwell was empty. She ran down it anyway, and when she got to the bottom she spun around again, bringing a shaking hand up to brush the hair away from her face.

It was still early, so the street wasn't too crowded – she could see clear to either end of the street through the cars and wandering people. She looked both ways, trying to pick out his distinctive silhouette or the lemon yellow color of his shirt.

He wasn't there.

Liz spun again, feeling her heartbeat speed up as all the possible scenarios ran through her mind. The accidents he could've gotten into, the enemies he could've met…

She'd already known that without changing something, he was going to die.

But what if that something was now, when she wasn't with him to change it?

_Breathe, Liz._ She roughly pinched the pressure point between her thumb and trigger finger, hoping the gentle pain would bring her focus. _Nothing's for sure, yet. He's probably fine – he could've just gone for a walk or something. _

"I'm going to kill him." Liz growled quietly.

Only then did Liz realize that some of the passersby were staring. Liz looked down, spotting first her bare (and now freezing) feet, then the red sweat pants patterned with cheesy, black broken hearts, and finally the spaghetti strap black shirt. Which was tight enough to show just how chilly the morning was.

Liz glanced up and caught the eye of a pair of old women, glaring balefully at her.

"Oh, come _on_." Liz snapped. "You live in _New York_. This is _not_ the worst thing you've ever seen."

The old women just glared harder, but a guy on their other side – who'd been doing a good job of not staring, but had apparently perfected the art of sneaky eavesdropping – snorted and tried not to smile.

Liz turned and hurried back up to her apartment.

"Okay, so…" she muttered as she closed the door behind her. "If I were Zan, where would I go?"

_Home_.

The answer came with the same unnerving, immediate certainty that she'd felt when Max had died and she'd known the War was lost. Liz froze as she rolled that thought over in her mind, hand halfway into the dresser where she'd kept the clothes she'd bought.

_Where's home, though?_

It took her a few minutes to remember what little Ava had said on the subject, and even then it wasn't much help. They'd lived somewhere underground, in some kind of abandoned fallout shelter or something. Ava had never been really specific, beyond saying that they'd been close enough to the subway tracks that everything rattled when one passed by. In fact, Liz wasn't sure Ava herself had even known for sure what the place had been made for originally.

Liz pulled on some jeans and tried to remember if Ava had ever said anything about where _exactly_ that place was supposed to be. After all, in New York City the term 'underground' covered a shit load of territory. Including the sewers, the subway stations, and half a dozen buried buildings that had been pretty much forgotten over the decades, there were any number of places they could've chosen.

But again – Ava hadn't been real specific.

Liz sighed and started tying her shoes. _So how do you find a place when you don't know where it is, what it is, or even really what it looks like? _

Again, an unexpected answer came to her almost immediately, but Liz pushed that thought away. There was no way she could do that – it'd been _so hard_ to stop. It was stupid and reckless and a fucking _bad idea_.

But sitting there, alone in her loft, knowing Zan could be dying that very moment…

… She couldn't really see any other options.

"Please, Zan…" Liz dazedly walked over to the couch and sat down, putting her elbows on her knees and burrowing her head in her hands. "… Please don't make me do this."

* * *

><p>Zan knew these tunnels well enough that he coulda walked 'em in the dark.<p>

He'd left Beth's place in a daze. He wasn't really thinkin' of where he was goin' or anythin' – he'd just had to get out. That place smelled like Beth – an' even though Beth seemed aight, for a crazy lady who thought she came from the future, it was still a smell he wasn't real familiar with, and it just made it all the more obvious that it wasn't home.

But he didn't have a home anymore, did he?

He'd found himself in an old subway, an' without givin' himself a chance to change his mind, he glanced around to make sure no one was watchin' then hopped down onto the tracks.

He knew a hundred ways to get back to their place, an' about a hundred feet into the tunnel was a little off branch blocked by a locked door. A wave of his hand unlocked it, but a sudden anxiety almost made Zan stop without opening it.

_What am I really gonna do? _

Did he really want to see them? Did he really want to hear their excuses? Or hear 'em tell him he deserved it? That they hated him an' they'd always hated him?

Zan's hand clenched around the door knob as memory after memory from his childhood grew tainted with uncertainty. When Lonnie called him names, had she actually been serious? Or had she known he'd think it was normal, an' was just playin' a part? When Rath had been at his back in every fight, had he really wished, deep down, that it was _Zan_ he was beatin' the shit out of?

What was he really here for?

_Revenge._

He hadn't really thought of it that clearly until that moment, but he felt the word grow real and big and hollow. It was like a deep, hungry pit in chest, made up of grief and rage and bitter confusion, emptyin' out every other feeling. Suckin' him dry. He remembered, again, the way it felt when he'd thrown Jenny into the wall.

He wanted that feelin' _back_.

Zan saw the last corner up ahead. His brought his hand up, palm forward, in preparation.

He waited a moment there, at the corner, preparin' himself for the moment.

He turned the corner, energy already runnin' through his arm –

To face an empty room.

* * *

><p>It was already dark when the four of them checked into another motel. Before this… impromptu little road-trip, Max had spent all of three nights in rooms like this one in his entire life. When the Evan's family went on vacations, they either headed up to their South Colorado cabin or stayed with cousins in New Jersey.<p>

Neither of which included floral wallpaper or X-rated TV stations.

He couldn't say he was really getting used to them, because he wasn't. But Tess had suggested they take advantage of their time away to work on recovering his repressed memories, which had at least given him something to distract himself from thoughts of what might be hiding under the bed sheets.

Well… that, and the dreams.

Max sighed and rubbed his eye.

_The dreams... _

They weren't _bad_ dreams, really. In fact, most of them were very, very _good _oness. But in the end, even the happiest ones just made everything so much worse…

_How am I supposed to get over Liz, when I spend my nights living the life we should have had together? _

He could never remember them very well in the morning, but that didn't stop him from thinking about them all day. Liz and him dancing, watching movies together on the couch, laughing about something over dinner...

_Making love. _

Max brought his other hand up to his face and scrubbed harder.

They did that a lot, in his dreams. At home, in places he didn't recognize, and even – when his subconscious was being particularly sadistic – that night when he'd come to her window, hoping she'd changed her mind about going with him to the concert. That night he'd caught her in bed with Kyle…

_It should've been me. _The weakest part of him complained. Max hated that part - he spent all day of every day trying to push it back. It was the worst kind of pathetic to still want her so badly after she'd ripped his heart out and left it beating on the floor. But he couldn't stop thinking it was true.

It _should_ have been him in there, telling her that he loved her, having her finally break down and say she loved him too. In the dream, he'd been so happy he'd immediately pulled her in for a kiss, and then… and then things sped up, and he couldn't really remember exactly what'd happened, but they'd been on her bed and he'd pulled the condom from his wallet…

In his dreams, he'd been her first, and they'd been _perfect _together.

Max sighed.

_It's just a dream_, he tried to reason with himself. _Liz obviously wasn't happy with him, if she'd ended up going to _Kyle.

Max scowled into his palms and tried to push those thoughts ways again. And anyway, with his luck, if the good dreams came true, so would the other ones, where he was running and fighting and everything was so completely out of control…

_Blood on his hands, people dying... _

They were half the reason he hadn't told anybody about his dreams. He felt like he was going crazy sometimes, and he couldn't even blame them on anything alien related.

The other half... well, he didn't want to admit it even to himself, but Max didn't tell anybody because he didn't want any one to stop them.

He'd take the nightmares, so long as he could -

A hand reached into his field of view and waved. Max blinked and pulled himself free of his thoughts. Tess grinned as she waved a set of keys in his face, tilting her head to one side, kittenishly coy. "We're in room 70. It's upstairs, but it's the only two-bed one they've got left."

Max smiled back and turned to grab their stuff out of the trunk. She'd been so good to him. So supportive and accepting, even though she knew he didn't have the same feelings for her as she did for him. It actually made Max feel really guilty sometimes, not only because he'd been so dismissive when she'd first shown up in Roswell, but also because some small part of him wondered if he'd even ever loved her at all.

They made their way up to their room, desperately trying to ignore Isabelle and Michael's double mutual groping, and put their stuff away. Max spent the next hour meditating with Tess, trying to focus on his – _Zan's_ – parents, this time around. By the end of it, a few of the colors and sounds were clearer in his mind, and the vague memory of a warm, masculine presence had begun to form.

But even as Tess grinned and congratulated him, Max's thoughts wandered back towards Liz. He helped Tess turn everything off, changed and brushed his teeth by rote. He shouldn't want to spend his nights living a different life. He shouldn't still want to be with Liz, after everything that'd happened. He shouldn't want to lose control like this, to be... so _weak_.

He knew all that, but he still barely hesitated before climbing under the sheets and closing his eyes. He found her there, waiting for him in oblivion, loving and open and honest.

The way she really only was in his dreams, now.

* * *

><p>Zan had waited at home for almost an hour, thinkin' his three traitorous subordinates would show up at some point. But slowly, the adrenaline started to wear off, an' Zan had gotten up and looked around a bit. He wasn't sure what he was lookin' for – maybe somethin' he'd missed before, some kinda sign that woulda warned him. Woulda prepared him for what they was gonna do to him.<p>

Instead, he'd found that Lonnie's bag was missin', and Ava's favorite books had gone with it. The more he looked, the more shit he _couldn't_ find – mostly bathroom stuff, but some clothes was missin' too, an' more than one outfit a piece.

He'd gone to his room (or rather, his _corner_ – there weren't any real rooms down here) last, but nothin' there was touched.

He stood there for a long time, lookin' over his bed an' his posters an' his guitar. He thought about takin' some of it – hidin' it safe somewhere those bastards couldn' touch it. But the more he looked around, the less he cared.

Let 'em have it.

_This shit ain't really mine anymore, anyway. _

He stood in middle ah the room, lookin' around at the big plasma screen TV an' the old couch they'd gotten off the streets, an' he wanted more than anything to destroy it all. Fuck it up beyond belief so that maybe, when they got back, they'd know he was here. Ghost of Christmas friggin' Past, rattlin' his chains.

Without even realizin' he'd closed 'em, Zan opened his eyes to see everythin' flyin' through the air around him. He wanted to throw it – to let the force inside him explode and take everythin' from his past out with him. He wanted them to _know_.

To know he hadn't gone anywhere.

_But if they knew, I'd lose my advantage. _

Everythin' slowed and gently floated back to its place.

_What advantage? They're gone, dumb ass!_

_You missed your friggin' chance._

Zan, suddenly mad tired, walked outta the tunnel an' didn't look back.

* * *

><p>Hours passed with no change, and Liz was more and more certain that something was wrong.<p>

_What the fuck is his problem?_ She ranted silently. _He almost died less than a week ago – is he _trying _to get himself killed?_

Liz got up and paced the length of the room a few times. She took a deep breath, trying to force herself to calm down. She perched on the edge of the couch, trying to breathe, trying to focus , but it wasn't working. The sound of the silence within her little apartment was so grating it made her want to scream, and within seconds she was back to pacing.

Back and forth, back and forth.

The idea that had first occurred to her hours ago came back, flashing neon in the back of her mind, trying to get her attention. Liz ignored it, or tried to, but it wouldn't go away – no more than the silence, or the worry, or the disturbing feeling that _something wasn't right_. Zan should be here, where she could protect him.

"Damn it, Zan." Liz hissed, almost silently. She sat down again, but popped right back up. "Where are you?"

That niggling little thought came back, tugging at her attention like an insistent child tugging on her sleeve. _Come this way_, it urged her, _I know what to do_.

But she knew what lay on that path, and she really, really didn't want to do it.

A quarter of an hour passed, Liz pacing and fidgeting the whole time, before she finally took a deep breath and forced herself to look over her options.

"Okay, so…" She said aloud. Audibly working out her plans had always helped her to more clearly weed out what was illogical or improbable. And what she needed now, most of all, was an honest, unbiased list of choices. "Either… either I can wait –"

_No waiting – no _time_!_ Her instincts shrieked. Liz rubbed the bridge of her nose and kept going.

"Or I can… I can…"

God, she didn't want to say it.

"I could try and _see_ it."

The silence of the apartment seemed to mock her.

Liz had always followed her instincts – she'd been intuitive even as a child, long before she'd met Max Evans. In fact, that was one of the reasons she suspected she'd gained the gift of precognition when none of the other Hybrids had – she'd speculated that maybe whatever part of her brain she used to perceive the world around her was more… active than most people. And had only gotten more so after Max had introduced alien DNA into her cells.

Of course, he hadn't known that was what he was doing at the time. But the same innate, cellular knowledge that the Shell exploited to rebuild the body also existed within Max – except that his contained the blueprint for a half-alien half-human system, where Liz's used to contain a strictly human one. Thus, when he'd used his healing ability to rebuild her from that blueprint, his power had recreated alien cells instead of human.

It wasn't a big deal, really – she had less DNA in common with Max than she did any human stranger on the street, but that little bit of DNA had been enough to cause an irrevocable change. In a stunning feat of biological brilliance, those cells – instead of simply multiplying the same foreign cells, and thus drawing the attention of her own body's defenses – had actually bonded with her own, creating a hybrid cell. That cell had then multiplied, and bonded, and spread that tiny little drop of alien DNA throughout her body, growing more and more diluted, but never completely disappearing.

Thus, the birth of a Hybrid.

Each of the Hybrids Max made had been different; Liz had her precognition and a little pyrokenisis, where Kyle had developed a subtle ability to pull people toward him – like simple charisma on steroids – and a tendency to electrically zap things when he got angry. Most of them could also use some (but not all) of the abilities Max, Michael, and Iz had shared (such as telekinesis, matter rearranging, and in one exceptional case, the ability to change ones physical form). A lot of Hybrids even developed a taste for the odd spicy-sweet diet the Roswell half-breeds often ate, although Liz herself had never been one of them.

But Liz had also gotten a double dose of the healing – still, not enough for her to get a significant amount of alien DNA, but enough that she'd gotten an extra boost of power. She didn't gain anymore abilities, but the precognition had become terrifyingly strong almost overnight.

Liz had never been able to learn to control it, and Max had once wondered if that might be because the precognition, as opposed to all her other abilities, was not triggered by _her _emotions. They were triggered by strong emotion from someone close to her_. _Which meant that there really wasn't anything Liz could do to control it. There wasn't even any way to predict when it would happen.

It'd seemed as good an explanation as any, so they'd ran with it. Since Liz didn't believe she'd ever be able to control it, she decided to build a mental cage to contain it – or, not so much a cage, really, as a kind of void within her mind. Psychologists called this sort of thing a "block", and it meant that, in some way, Liz was still having her visions. She was just no longer conscious of them.

But if she wanted Zan back… she might just have to open that cage again.

Liz leaned back on the couch and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, thinking it through.

Slowly, as if waiting for what she was now certain of to change, Liz slid down to the floor, crossing her legs and laying her elbows down on her knees. Her hands floated, palm up, inches above the ground before her. After a second she took another deep breath and sighed.

"Damn you," she whispered, although whether the curse was directed toward Zan or that terrifying box, she wasn't sure.

She knew how to open it. Her and Max had come up with a trigger before she'd started making the box – a sort of crowbar she could use to pop it open, should she ever be that reckless.

It wouldn't be anywhere near that easy to close again.

_Fuck_.

Her hands were shaking.

"_Pandora_."

The spectrum slid, and all the world was color.

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: The beginning of… well, the middle. Hope you liked it. (:

Sorry for the technical bits, and I would've edited it some more, but I have a feeling I might've already gone too far with that.

Review. It's easy. There's a button just under this and everything.


	10. Chapter 8: Release

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Still having issues with characterization, and I'm kinda just updating for me now anyways. To the ones who are still reading (and based on the number of reviews lately, I don't think there are very many), don't worry – I'm not going to stop. I want to finish at least one story for _me_, and so even if it takes me a while, I'm gonna keep writing. Whether or not I'll ever do the sequel I planned, though… I'm not real sure about that.

Also, I've edited this about a dozen times, but since I usually go over my work even more obsessively than that, this may look a little... well, not as good as other chapters. But considering how long you guys have to wait between chapters, I figured you'd rather have something than something perfect.

Oh – and there's a little bit of rude language in this chapter, beyond the typical cursing. Just a heads up.

Anyway, read and enjoy. And _dear god_, please update.

* * *

><p>Twenty minutes later, Zan was standin' in front of his favorite club.<p>

He could hear the music even before he'd gotten close enough to see the door – a deep bass throbbing just hard enough to buzz his fingertips. Despite how late it was, there was still a line of people waitin' to get in. Zan ignored 'em an' walked to the front of the line.

The door man's name was Jason, and he obviously remembered Zan. Jason glanced behind him, probably hopin' to see Lonnie, an' looked kinda disappointed. He nodded an' let Zan through without even askin' for ID, which saved Zan the trouble of havin' to make a quicky one.

Zan strolled inside, lettin' the ear-splittin' screech of metal rock pound through him. The theme was still pretty much the same as it'd been last time he'd been through – black an' red an' aluminum made up like silver. They had some band or other playin' on the stage by the dance floor, where the strobe lights made people seem to dance in frame-by-frame.

He walked over and took a seat on one of the stools at the bar. He sat for a minute, listenin' to the music an' tracin' patterns in the dark wood grain.

"Hey." Zan glanced up at the bartender. This guy was unfamiliar; the bartender a year ago had been named Val. It wasn't really surprisin' he hadn't lasted, considerin' Zan had seen him sellin' drugs a couple times. The Black Cherry might not exactly crack down on drug use, but they didn't like to employ people with Val's kinda ties, either. "Can I get you something?"

"Naw." He waited till the new guy turned away, then snuck one of the cheap coasters off the counter an' worked a lil' magic on it. "Uh – hey! Actually, can I get a beer?"

The bartender came back. The smile he passed Zan was more than a lil' condescending. "Yeah, right, kid. Look, I don't know how you got in here –"

Zan held his new ID up and watched the smile fade. The dude took it, flippin' it this way and that to try and find something off about it. But Zan'd done this before, so there really wasn't anythin' to find. "I'm a lot older than I look, asshole. Just bring me the beer."

The guy's face went blank as he turned away. Zan watched him go without flippin' him off, despite the temptation.

Zan wasn't stupid. They'd found out early on the kinda issue aliens (or half-aliens, anyway) had with alcohol. In fact, when they was thirteen Rath had somehow got hold of a bottle of vodka an' showed up after chugging almost a fourth ah the bottle. Before the symptoms had kicked in, Lonnie took a sip – an' suddenly started turnin' their place into a friggin' nightclub.

Rath got sick then, an' Zan'd told Ava to take care of him while he kept his eye on Lonnie. His sister had said all kindsa shit that night, an' most of it had been pretty friggin' painful to hear. But Zan told himself it was just the kinda stupid stuff people did when they were drunk – none of it meant anything, an' he just had to ignore it and follow her around to keep her from blowin' the big secret.

Eventually, Lonnie'd sobered up, forgot everything, an' they'd headed back to help Ava with Rath. He'd stayed sick all night, but in the morning he was better.

Zan wasn't gonna drink. But in this club, if you didn't have a drink or some kinda illegal substance, people pretty much assumed you was a cop. So Zan did what he'd always done here; get a drink, go sit in the corner an' slowly evaporate it empty.

He wasn't much of a dancer. Not like Lonnie or even Ava – although he as pretty sure he could do it better than Rath. Rath had never listened when they'd warned him, but he couldn't dance to save his life.

Zan swallowed and looked down at his hands.

The bartender came back carryin' his beer and still lookin' pretty annoyed. Zan looked up at him, rolled his eyes an' ignored him – but he saw the annoyance shift into actual anger from the corner of his eye.

_Good_.

Unfortunately for Zan's current mood, the guy obviously had a better handle on his temper than Zan had guessed, 'cause he turned an' walked off rather than start somethin'.

Zan grabbed his beer an' got up. He walked over to the side ah the room, picked a corner with a table an' sat down. He woulda fucked with the bartender some more, but sooner or later he'd notice that Zan wasn' drinkin'. People started askin' awkward questions when you bought booze and didn't drink it. Of course, that idea didn't bother him much as it used to, considerin', but old habits were a bitch to break.

Zan slouched back against the wall, watching the people writhe. A guy in the middle had a familiar Mohawk, and for one gut wrenchin' moment he thought it was Rath dancin' with some random chick. But he was too brawny, and the swirlin' tattoo crawlin' up his neck was somethin' Rath never woulda liked. Too _generic_, too _cliché_.

Rath'd always been a fuckin' snob when it came to tats.

Zan felt his hand clench around the neck of his bottle, but he couldn't look away.

The jacket, though – _that_ Rath woulda liked. Black leather, pockets lined in chains, friggin' _spikes_ embedded in the cuffs. Zan could picture the gutsy little showoff starin' in awe, practically _droolin'_. He woulda begged Lonnie to make him one…

Zan felt that familiar anger bubble up like vomit in his throat as his vision dimmed. He was lookin' at the jacket, but he was _seein'_ Rath an' Lonnie. His Second an' his sister, dancin' in this club more than a year back, while he sat in the corner like a tool, happy they? was havin' fun. Did they want to kill him even then? Was Lonnie already lookin' for a reason? How long had they been plannin' it?

"You gotta problem, asshole?"

Zan blinked, Lonnie an' Rath vanishin' like swirls ah smoke over fire.

The dude in the jacket was right in front of him now, scowlin' down at Zan. There was nothin' familiar 'bout his face – his eyes were too close together, his nose too wide, his lips too thin – except that it was starin' at him from under Rath's friggin' Mohawk. But that was enough, really; Zan felt that same swell ah irritation he always felt when Rath looked at him like that.

Oddly enough, he welcomed the feelin'.

"Yeah, I do." Zan looked the guy up an' down, then slowly stood up till they was nose to nose.

The guy's jaw dropped just a lil', obviously not having expected to get lip from some kid half his size. He turned red and snapped his jaw shut so quick his teeth clicked. "You stupid little fuck – "

"Hey!" The jerk's girlfriend stepped up. "Come on, Nick, that's enough –"

" – you're really askin' for it, kid!"

Zan smirked and leaned his head back, neva' takin' his eyes off the guy. "Hell yeah, I am. Come on, _Tiny_ – whatcha waitin' for?"

Nick snarled, his hand comin' up fisted, Zan braced for the impact –

"Hey!"

This voice was different. It belonged to a burly dude makin' his way toward them from the bar; he was bigger even than Nick, an' wearin' the black vests that all employees of the Black Cherry had to wear. Zan didn't recognize him either, but apparently Nick did. Even though it was Nick who'd been throwin' the first punch, the dick waited for a quick nod from Nick before he turned a pissed off expression toward Zan. "You guys wanna do this, you're doin' it outside, got it? We already get enough of that shit around here."

Zan kept his eyes on Nick an' shrugged. "I got no problem with dat."

Nick smirked. "Lil' too eager to get your ass handed to ya, ain't cha kid?"

Zan smiled an' kept quiet. He'd never been real big on trash talkin' – that was more Rath's kinda thing. Zan thought he sounded like a tool, most times, but he'd seemed to enjoy that part more than the actual fight. So long as they got to fight, Zan was fine with whatever.

He hadn't ever fought alone, though.

That thought clogged up Zan's throat with something between rage and heartbreak, givin' him one more reason to keep his mouth shut.

Nick's face twisted in annoyance as he turned an' started walkin' toward the back door. Zan picked up his beer an' stared at it for a second, tryin' to remember why he shouldn't do this. Cause it was stupid, for one. He didn't know how he'd react, or what he'd do, or how much that guy might see. But really, what'd any of that matter to him anymore? It wasn't like it'd kill him (probably), an' he didn' have anybody left to protect anymore.

A picture of Beth flashed in his mind, bringin' with it a twinge of guilt. She'd be pissed at him for this, he knew. Nothin' like a good fight to "bust his stitches", an' chances were he wasn't gonna come out of this one untouched. But why the fuck did that bother him at all? Beth was a big girl – she could take care of herself. An' however she felt about Zan, she'd only known him a few days; if she never saw him again, she probably wouldn't lose one goddamn night's sleep.

Zan frowned an' swung the bottle up for a sip.

It hit his tongue like fire an' burned all the way down to his stomach. From there, it exploded in a wave of electric sparks, archin' through his body like freezin' bolts ah lightning. The room spun, an' Zan tried to hide his sudden vertigo by puttin' the bottle down gently on the table, then grabbin' on for a second. The bottle wobbled, obviously unsteady, but Zan wasn't really in a state to pay attention to that.

After a minute, the spinnin' eased – or, no, not eased, but… It was more that he got used to it. The room was spinnin', an' the people were spinnin', and Zan was spinnin' with 'em – billions an' billions ah bugs, clinging to a tennis ball in space.

Things seemed… clearer, somehow, like this. The lil' stuff had all disappeared – the worry 'bout discovery, the naggin' guilt about leavin' Beth, all of it. Even that tension between his shoulders that hadn't gone away since he'd been hit by the truck was startin' to ease.

Zan thought about Lonnie, an' about Rath, an' about how much he wanted the two of them to fuckin' _hurt_. But they weren't here right now. Instead there was a guy who looked a bit like Rath waitin' for Zan out back, an' for now that would have to be enough.

Zan grinned without really sure why.

For the first time in his life, he felt almost… _free_.

He wobbled his way toward the back door, grinnin' the whole time.

* * *

><p>Liz groaned.<p>

_God, my head… _

Eyes still closed against the pounding in her temple, Liz pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Her stomach lurched, and for one awful moment Liz was sure she was going to get sick all over the… the…

Liz pried her eyelids open.

_The floor?_

Now that she'd seen it, she recognized the tattered threads under her fingers as the familiar off-white carpet of her apartment. Liz narrowed her eyes against both the painful glare and her growing confusion.

_What was I doing on the floor – _

Stars burst inside her retinas with enough force to make her arms give out. Liz choked in a breath to scream, but it got stuck somewhere between her vocal chords and her mouth.

There were a thousand voices all talking at once – she wrapped her hands around her ears to block out the cacophony. She blinked open her eyes again, and there were almost as many people surrounding her. Alex was standing in the middle of the table, holding his head and yelling something at Tess. She kept grabbing at him, trying to get him to calm down, to look her in the eye, to –

And that guy – Max's boss, the abductee – strode through Tess's image, waving a gun. Max and Tess were tied up on the floor, trying to talk him into letting them go. But he wouldn't listen, couldn't listen, and that _gun – _

Zan walked behind him and Liz, and despite the plethora of activity dragging on her attention she kept her eyes locked on him. She needed to know where he'd gone, if he was safe –

He walked through a door hanging in thin air, and the neon sign above it read "Black Cherry."

He disappeared into the phantom crowd, and another knife cut through her temple.

"Jesus _Christ._" Liz hissed as she dug her fingers into her scalp.

There was Isabelle, Sheriff Valenti and Max getting shot at, and Michael crouching over a corpse in a uniform, and Max healing people – so many people…

People were going through her apartment in droves, appearing and disappearing at random, walking through and over her, whispering and talking and _screaming_. People bled, broke, and died all around her, so many and so quickly that she didn't even have the time to notice them all.

But she could feel them.

She could feel them in her head.

She closed her eyes and held her hands over her ears, but the pressure remained.

The movement, the screams, the freaking _feeling_.

It was all just… too much.

And then it wasn't.

The wave receded, and Liz opened her eyes again. The phantom crowd was losing color, edges blurring into the background even as she watched. She pulled her hands away from her ears, but the volume was easing along with the images. After a few seconds, Liz found herself alone in a quiet room.

Her head still throbbed, but most of that awful pressure had eased.

Liz felt her jaw drop. She waited for all of it to return – to surge back onto the still shore, wreaking havoc. But a long moment passed without change, and it occurred to Liz that that one explosive wave might be all there would be of it. After years of keeping it boxed up, years of hiding from it, maybe… maybe it was over.

Liz frowned, irrationally angry with that idea.

That… that was _nothing _like she remembered. Where was the chaos? The constant, distracting microvisions? Where was the rest of that horrible, cancerous ability she'd given up so many years ago?

"What the _fuck_?" Liz whispered, still kind of expecting it to start up again. But it didn't and it wouldn't, and she couldn't understand _why_.

Liz pushed herself back to her feet, and the sudden vertigo inspired bile in her throat was almost a relief. She stumbled her way toward the phone, still trying to figure out what was going on. Had she blown the whole thing out of proportion over the years? No – that didn't sound like her. Had the ability started to… to _fade _over the years? Her other abilities hadn't; why would that one be the only one to go into remission? Maybe it was because she'd kept it in the box for so long –

An intangible black bag slipped over her head, and Liz gasped and tensed before it passed through her face. She turned to see what the hell that'd been, but the vision had already faded away. The apartment was empty again.

… okay, so maybe it wasn't _all_ gone, but still. A lot better than before.

Liz thought about it for a moment longer before a disquieting little theory started to form. When she'd first developed alien abilities, they'd been… well, _volatile_ to say the least. She'd blown up the liquor cabinet and melted or set fire to too many things to count. Eventually, she'd figured out that was all due to the rage she'd been repressing.

And the second time she'd healed, she'd woken up to Maria's corpse, Michael's bleeding stump, news that her baby was dead and an interplanetary war on the horizon.

She'd _thought_ she'd coped, but was it possible she'd just… pushed it aside? She'd done something similar with Max at first, too; she'd been so happy to have him back that she'd ignored all of their unresolved issues. And when the war started, Liz clearly remembered thinking that she couldn't afford to waste too much time dwelling on the past…

Had she just told herself she'd handled it, without _actually _fixing the problem?

At some point during her musings, her hand wrapped around the grip of her phone. Abruptly remembering _why _she'd opened the box in the first place, Liz dialed information and asked for the address of a place called _Black Cherry_.

_First, I'm going to make sure he's safe. _

_Then I'm going to _kill_ him. _

* * *

><p>Zan laughed, face pressed against the asphalt, blood cakin' in between his teeth.<p>

Nick an' the other guy – whose name was apparently Jasper (who the hell names their kid Jasper, anyway?) – were both in the alley when he came out. Jasper'd said he was just keepin' an eye out to make sure things didn't get too far, but when Zan managed to get Nick in the knee an' knock him down, Jasper had come up behind him and shoved him in the back.

Now it was two on one, an' Zan had been losin' already just to Nick. He could feel his ribs throbbin' an' his knuckles achin' an' there was a crazy bruise comin' up on his waist. They'd got his eye and nose, and the blood kept runnin' into his mouth, makin' his lips glue together.

But the adrenaline surged through him like a fuckin' freight train, an' the alcohol was numbin' most all of the pain, an' so Zan laughed. At one point Jasper started lookin' confused an' a little freaked out – probably wonderin' if Zan was completely high outta his fuckin' mind, actually – but Zan had done all he could to keep Nick good'n pissed. He wanted a fight, damn it, an' these two little bitches couldn't step out on him now.

Zan pushed himself back up to his knees, wiped the blood off his face, an' smiled.

_Haven't felt this good in years_, he thought to himself, an' was actually surprised to realize it was true. Despite the pain, despite the horrible, shitty friggin' situation, the weight of everythin' just kept shrinking.

For so long, he'd had to take care of them. Then they'd betrayed him, an' he knew he'd have to get back at 'em – that he owed them pain an' suffering for what they'd done to him. An' when he was sober, he actually _wanted_ all those things, those heavy fuckin' obligations, but right now, the world spinnin' in beer an' blood… for the life ah him, he couldn't remember why he'd want anything at all.

He was _free_, an' it was therapeutic as shit to be pissin' off this dude who looked like Rath, to be drawin' blood – if just a lil' – from that scowly, insolent friggin' face.

_I don't have to do anythin' I don't want to._ He wondered silently as he stood, grinning absently at his bewildered opponents. _Fuckin' _ay_, that feels good._

"Crazy freak," Rath/Nick muttered, an' a big chunk ah that feelin' went away.

"… Freak?" Zan mumbled aloud, hearing the horn, bein' blinded by a phantom flash ah headlights. He… He was a freak. Always been pretty proud of it actually, but…

_Is that why they tried to kill me? _

_I'm no more of a freak than they are_. The darker part of him whispered back, soundin' feral an' angry as shit. _We're all freaks, really – but at least we freaks with _power.

Yeah. Zan remembered that. Their power. _His _power.

"I'm da man." He mumbled, an' then remembered that night with the girls at his back an' Rath in his face. He'd said the same thing then to get Rath to back the hell off.

_I'm da King, ain't I? _

But the voice was quiet now, an' the ugliness ah that alley seemed to spring at him in sudden contempt.

A King, huh? Yeah, sure – the King ah the Alleyway, maybe. King ah trash an' blood an' vomit. But King of the world? What's a King with no Second? With no peeps, no family, no home?

_King's dead, Zan. Been dead more'n fifty years, now_.

He'd forgotten Nick an' Jasper, till Nick snorted in contempt.

"The man? Ha!" Nick snarled, eyes sparklin' with vicious enjoyment. "My ass, kid. You're balls have barely dropped, an' you think you're tough shit?"

Zan felt his lip curl even as he swayed. The alley seemed to bob around him, an' Zan swallowed back the rising bile.

_It's not goin' away_, he thought nervously, _I just had one sip an' it's not – _

"Let me ask you something." Nick sneered, cockin' his head to the side. "If you're really somethin' special, why're ya gettin' yer ass kicked, huh? How come you ain't got no friends or family here, backin' you up?"

Zan's eyes slid up to Nick, an' his mind went very, very quiet.

Did he really know the answer?

_Tell me why!_

Nick waited a second, as if expectin' a response. When he saw Zan wasn't talkin', he grinned. "I'll tell ya why. 'Cause you ain't no bad ass, brat. You ain't nothin' special, an' you sure as hell ain't _the man_."

The world still spun in circles around him, an' blood still poured down over his lip and into his teeth, an' everything was probably going just as fast as it had been a second before. But Zan felt frozen, stuck in that instant. The words echoed in his skull like thunder, like a whisper in the void, an' Zan couldn't think or speak or even _breathe_…

Had Nick stopped there, maybe that's all that woulda happened. Maybe him an' Jasper woulda walked off an' left Zan standin' there in the alley, beat up an' bloody an' frozen. But Nick was enjoyin' watchin' Zan finally reactin' with somethin' other than a condescendin' expression or a creepy-ass smile, so he didn't stop.

"Hell, if I was you, I'd stick my head in the fuckin' oven, cause yer just _pathetic_."

Of everythin' he'd said, that line should have been the least affective. It was a childish, schoolyard bully kinda insult. Jasper, who'd begun to feel pretty bad for the kid, turned a disgusted glare on his friend, who caught his look an' glared right back.

Any other time, Zan woulda laughed. He woulda sneered an' said somethin' demeaning. Woulda made the asshole feel like the biggest idiot on the planet. It wouldn't really of been hard, either – it wasn't like Nick was the brightest guy on the block, an' Zan had a lifetime of experience lookin' down his nose at jerks like Nik.

But today, Zan was thinkin' of how his Second – his brother, his best friend, the guy he'd trusted more than anybody else since they'd been babies just outta their pods – had wanted him _dead_.

Zan'd been skimmin' off the top of his anger up till this point, usin' up just enough to ease the pressure, but not enough to lose control.

Tonight, he was drunk, an' he was lookin' into Rath's smilin' face.

And in his mind, it was Rath tellin' him to die.

Rath smilin'.

Rath callin' him pathetic.

Rath tellin' him he wasn't the man.

Zan reached out one hand an' lifted the two men into the air. Jasper yelped, Nick hissed a frightened curse, an' both of 'em turned wide eyes on Zan. Zan pressed his other hand against the wall beside him, an' bars of brick shot out all around the three of 'em. Nick'd gone white an' silent, an' Jasper was whisperin' a prayer or some shit, but Zan wasn' really lookin' at either of 'em anymore.

"Oh, I'm da man." Zan growled, an ocean of rage set free.

"Neva' forget."

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: *Groans* Dear God, I suck at slang. Sorry for that...

Also, do you guys think I should try and get a beta? How do I go about doing that?

Review. It's easy. There's a button just under this and everything.


	11. Chapter 9: Tumble

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Extra long chapter. Won't keep you from it. (:

* * *

><p>Some part ah Zan knew the guy sobbin' on the sidewalk wasn't Rath.<p>

He wasn't listenin' to that part.

"Are you actually _cryin'_?" Zan sneered and turned his wrist. Rath choked as the wavering green light pulled in tighter – one band around each wrist, one around both ankles, his stomach and his throat. "That's _weak_, man. Even for you."

Rath was a lot of things – gutsy an' vain an' occasionally really, really friggin' blind. He didn't get girls, which Zan thought was how Lonnie had turned him into such a damn puppet. He thought he was tougher than Zan, an' if they'd stood side by side an' just compared how much energy they used, he'da been right, too. But even Rath had known he couldn't take Zan head-on – that's why Rath'd snuck up behind him an' pushed 'im under a truck.

Still. Zan had expected more_… fight_. Wanted it.

"Who's pathetic now?" Zan sneered, lookin' him up an' down just to piss 'im off.

But Rath just sobbed.

_He's not Rath._

"Shuddup." Zan hissed. "I know he ain't Rath, but Rath ain't here, so he'll just have to do, won't he?"

Five minutes. That was all it'd taken. Zan tilted his head back, saw the brick wall an' grinned. He strolled over, steppin' over Jasper – Zan'd accidently knocked him out earlier when he'd started throwin' shit around – an' laid his hand along the rough surface. Zan brought his hand up an' pictured what he wanted, then traced the letters on the wall. When he was done he stepped back, looked over his work, an' frowned. Another tap lit the whole thing up in neon.

"Much better…" Zan muttered before turnin' back to the cryin' man with a grin.

"What'd I tell ya?"

Rath looked up, glimpsed the glowing '_Zan's the Man'_ sign on the wall, an' went back to cryin' louder than ever.

Zan rolled his eyes an' had to lean on the wall to keep from fallin'. When he got his balance back, Zan started laughin'. At first it was just at how stupid he must look, drunker than hell after one sip ah crappy beer, an' then it was because Rath was cryin', but not really, cause this guy just looked like Rath. Rath sided with Lonnie, the traitor bitch who'd sold their asses out the last time around.

He'd say people never changed, but that wasn' true. Rath'd died defendin' Zan the first time 'round. An' wasn't that ironic, that Rath would defend the King against Vilandra in one life, and help her kill him in the next?

_Well, you ain't his King no more. Just some dumb ass kid on the street._

"Long live dah King." Zan whispered, then snorted an' started laughin' all over again. He laughed so hard he fell over, tears comin' to his eyes. Then, somehow, he wasn't laughin' anymore, but the tears kept comin'. They poured down his cheeks like somebody'd opened the friggin floodgates, years of repressed shit piggybackin' on the pain of fresh trauma.

Zan couldn't even remember the last time he'd cried, before last week. Now it seemed like every other word brought on the waterworks.

"Fuck." He tried to be angry, but all that came out was this pathetic little kid voice. What was wrong with him lately? When'd he turn into such a friggin' pansy?

Why was he even cryin' now?

_They left me. _

Zan blinked an' looked up toward the stars, toward home – his _real _home. But he couldn't see anything but black sky beyond the city lights.

"You were supposed to be there." He finally muttered, still starin' up at the empty night sky through the blur of tears. "I was gonna… You were supposed to be there. At our place. You weren't s'possed tah ditch me. Not before I could show you how big you fucked up by not killin' me for real."

He'd gone home for vengeance, only to find it'd left him behind.

An' how sad was it that even now, watchin' Nick beggin' an' cryin', he wasn't feelin' any better? Even though Zan'd won the fight – even though he'd proved he wasn't pathetic? Even though Nick looked so much like Rath?

Where was that feelin' he'd got so long ago, watchin' Jenny hit the wall?

Zan sniffed an' pulled one hand into a fist, then brought it down fast an' hard on the asphault. The sudden hot flare of pain didn't make him feel any better, but it sobered him up, just a little, an' let him stop the tears.

Zan glanced back up after a moment and saw the snot an' tears still runnin' down Nick's face.

_That ain't Rath. _Zan thought, tryin' to convince himself. _That's why it ain't helpin'. _

_What the fuck'm I even _doin' _here? _He wondered, starin' at the brick for a long, empty minute.

Zan started to stand up an' heard metal slide across the uneven ground. He turned around to see Jasper comin' at him with a pipe of some kind, metal glintin' orange in the cheap ass street light. His eyes were wide an' rollin' an' completely friggin' crazy, an' Zan knew immediately that the guy would try to kill him.

Zan relaxed against the wall an' closed his eyes.

But then Jasper shouted, catchin' Zan's attention, an' went him flyin' through the air.

Zan froze, tensed up, got ready to fight again. But instead of the hit he was expectin', he felt somebody grab his shoulder an' spin him around. For just a second, he saw her face, an' then she was grabbin' him.

It felt… really good to be hugged.

Awkward, uncomfortable, an' unfamiliar as shit, but still good.

"Jesus, Zan – you scared the crap outta me!" Beth scowled, clawed fingers digging into his shoulder to push him away. Zan, feelin' extra dizzy at that moment, wrapped his arms around her waist and kept her close. For balance.

Obviously.

Beth went completely rigid.

"Zan…" she said, soundin' – weirdly enough – both angrier an' kinda amused. "Have you been drinking?"

Zan blinked, shocked she'd figured it out. After a minute he shrugged an' pulled back some, letting' go with one hand to hold his thumb an' pointer finger about an inch apart in front of her. "Lil' bit, yeah. Just a sip, but is nah goin' 'way…"

Beth blinked, goin' just a lil' pale. Zan wondered if she'd been drinkin' too.

"You – you freaks!"

Zan jerked an' turned to look at Nick. He'd actually forgotten the guy was there. With Jasper awake, though, he'd apparently grown some balls, an' now he was wavin' a long, flat chunk of wood toward Beth. Zan frowned, free hand comin' up automatically to renew the hold, but Beth caught his wrist an' pushed his hand back down.

_Weird_. Zan thought. _If Ava or Lonnie'd done that, it woulda really pissed me off. S'it cause I'm drunk? _He considered pullin' away from Beth, but changed his mind as another wave ah vertigo almost knocked him over. Instead, he put his head down on her shoulder an' closed his eyes, hopin' it'd go away. _Oh man, she smells nice… _

_… No way. I'm not… I don't… I don't actually _like _her, right?_

He woulda said no right off, most days. But right now, feelin' the way he was, everythin' bein' so clear… he couldn't really tell, one way or another. Which meant he wasn't there yet, but was probably startin' to…

The thought all by itself almost made him toss chunks all over Beth. As his stomach roiled, he pushed the thought aside an' decided to figure it out later. No reason to think about complicated stuff now, when he was wasted.

"Look – you an' you're buddy just go back into the bar, okay? Nobody has to know this ever happened…"

"The fuck they don't!" Nick screamed. Zan clenched his fist on the back of her shirt an' lifted his head up again, wonderin' if he could pull his hand up an' aim before Beth could stop him.

… Prolly not, considerin' how he was feelin'.

"They're gonna lock you two up an' throw away the fuckin' key! After what that little prick did to me – "

"Oh?" Beth asked, soundin' curious. "An' what did he do? Throw trash at you with his mind?"

Nick gaped, mouth openin' an' closin' quietly for a second. Then his face got all red again as he gestured back at the stone bars through the alley. "He did _that_, and you can't just cover that kinda shit up!"

"Zan?" Beth smiled. "Could you get rid of those bars for me, please?"

Zan smirked, reachin' back for the wall.

The bars slid back, thickening the wall and filling up the empty spaces he'd had to leave behind to make them. Zan smiled an' floated the dumpsters back without bein' asked. Weird how much easier all this shit came to him when he was wasted, though...

_I _am _the Drunken Master_, he thought, an' snickered to himself. Kung-fu flicks had always been a favorite of his crew, but until this very moment he'd never been a real big fan of that one.

Nick was gapin' again.

Nick's face spun, an' Zan put his head back on Beth's shoulder with a groan.

_God, I think I'm gonna puke._

"So, tell me again how the magic boy attacked you?"

This time, Nick was quiet.

Beth brought her hand up an' started rubbin' Zan's back. He didn't think she realized she was doin' it, but weirdly enough, it was makin' his stomach calm down a lil' bit. "As I said, gentlemen – go back into your bar, and nobody has to know. Or you can tell the cops or the media or whoever that the _magical kid_ made solid wall turn to rock bars and moved things with his brain. I'd be interested to see if they just laughed you out of the office, or had you committed on the spot."

They didn't say anythin' else, an' a minute later, Zan heard the door to the bar open an' shut.

Beth started pullin' Zan toward the end ah the alley, an' he reluctantly picked his head up again. "Zan, we have to leave. Like, _now_. Do you think you could, uh… make us some hoodies?"

Zan looked down at her. She wasn't calm anymore – in fact, she looked kinda scared. "Why?"

Liz pulled a lil' harder, tryin' to speed him up. "To hide our faces."

Zan blinked, confused, then realized what she meant. "Huh? Hey – why we gotta go so fast?"

"Because you did some very alien things in a semi-public place, Zan, and if the wrong person saw then we could be in deep shit." Liz answered testily as she peeked out the end of the alley. Zan wondered if he'd sounded like that when his crew started gettin' cocky. He hoped not, but he also kinda enjoyed havin' somebody else worry about that kinda stuff for a change. "So – hoodies, please? And… maybe different clothes?"

Zan tilted his head. Lonnie usually did this stuff, but right now he was pretty sure he could do it better. He did his own first – took the sleeves off of his jacket, moved the matter up to form the hood. He changed a curl of fabric in the back into a red Chinese dragon, for no other reason than he figured it'd look badass. Then he took some of what was left an' gave himself some black fingerless gloves.

He started to get into it then, an' he found himself changin' more ah the details – red stripe down the side of his shirt, a spiked bracelet made from a lil' bit of the brick wall...

A few seconds later he looked up at Beth, who was glarin' at him.

He didn't know why, but that expression made him want to mess with her a bit. An image of her in a mini-skirt, tube-top, a skimpy hoodie an' platform shoes came to mind, an' he reached out toward her shoulder to make the image real.

She caught his hand half-way there.

"Uh uh, Zan. No. I _just _want a hoodie. Take the extra fabric from my sleeves, please."

Zan blinked. "How'd ya know what I was gonna do?"

Beth rolled her eyes. "You're drunk, Zan. Drunk people aren't sneaky."

"Oh," he said, an' made her a normal hoodie. It was a bit tighter than the stuff she usually wore, but she didn't say anything. Glared a lot, but not she didn't _say_ a word…

Zan kinda wanted another hug, but knew better than to ask.

* * *

><p>Liz kept them moving until they reached a more populated area. From there, she found a payphone and called a cab – her second for the evening – and then sat down on the curb to wait. There was no company but Zan (who was still looking pretty unsteady) and her own dark thoughts.<p>

She wanted to be mad at him, and had in fact spend the entire cab ride over imaging new and inventive ways of making him suffer for scaring her. When she'd gotten there, some guy was trying to kill him and he was just _standing _there like an idiot, not even trying to fight back. That'd made it all worse, and she probably would have ignored the other two completely in order to ream him right then, but…

He'd hugged her back.

Which was so freakishly unexpected she'd frozen stiff. But then she'd caught a glimpse of a shaky looking neon sign on the wall declaring Zan as "the man", and things had started to get a little bit clearer.

She'd confronted him, and he'd admitted to drinking. Again, she'd wanted to be angry – wanted to _strangle him_ for being so completely, unforgivably _stupid_ – but… he was doing the adorable-drunk thing. She'd almost forgotten what it was like to be able to look into a person's face and read all of their innermost thoughts.

It wasn't _him_, not really, because a big part of who Zan was included his fear of getting close to people, his need to protect the few who managed to get around that fear and the desire to hurt the ones who took advantage of it. When he was drunk, all of that was stripped away, and all that was left was the ID. The inner child.

But even knowing that… it'd been really nice to experience that side of him.

_Hell, if that had been all that happened tonight, I might've even had_ _fun_, she mused with a snort. Liz leaned back, keeping one eye on Zan, and let her mind wander.

After… well, after everything that'd happened in the apartment, she'd made very little headway on her theory. It made sense, but there was really no way to know for sure without actually testing it. She didn't have the luxury of that kinda time, though, so she'd just… have to make an assumption and run with it.

Which Liz had always _hated_ doing.

But who could she really study, anyway? All of Max's cancer-kids were still sick and half the people he'd healed in the war were still playing on jungle-gyms, and it wasn't exactly a bit habit of Zan's to go around healing people. The only people Liz knew of that had already been hybridized in this time-frame (besides herself) all lived in Roswell.

And it wasn't like she could go _there _to analyze anything, considering the first so-called "big change" she made would undo her entire existence. Assuming that hadn't already happened tonight.

Liz frowned. No – she'd be gone already, right? Except… well, Future-Max had had a couple of hours, so did that mean - ?

Zan shoved her shoulder.

She quickly boxed away the uncomfortable thoughts. If that was the case, there really wasn't anything she could do about it now, was there?

Liz turned to Zan – _standing in her apartment _– sitting on a curb, staring at – _shouting something_ – her with a look of unfocused annoyance. Liz blinked and quickly banished the unwelcome microvision, and then reminded herself that they were just waiting for a cab to take them back to her apartment. She'd found him in a drunken alien brawl in an alley, displaying his abilities in a terrifyingly public manner.

That was _present _– that was _now_.

Tomorrow (assuming she was still _here_, which made her third assumption of the evening), she'd break the news that it wasn't safe to stay here anymore, and then they'd leave New York and hole up somewhere for a while. He wouldn't be happy to hear it, but that's probably what that weird double vision thing a moment before had been about.

_You're getting too used to making assumptions. What if it's important?_

Liz ignored the mental warning and turned her face toward Zan.

"Yeah?"

"Ya sure those pricks'll keep they mouths shut?"

Liz thought back to the men she'd seen in the alley, and the furious glares they'd thrown her way when they'd gone back inside. One of the guys was a personality type she knew really well; the self modeled "tough" guy who had to compare sizes with any male that so much as looked at them twice. If she was right about him, then his credit meant a lot to him. He wouldn't want to say anything to make himself look like an idiot or a weakling, so he'd leave the short chick and the magical goth boy out of any stories he told. Hopefully, anyway.

The other guy… the other guy was harder. He'd looked genuinely terrified in a way that made her really, _really_ nervous. She'd met the occasional human Rebel with that look; it was the kind of fear some people got when they were faced with something they didn't understand. And that kind of fear tended to make people do dangerous things.

Still. There was no way they'd be able to figure out where she lived in the next couple of days, so they were safe until they could leave town. Probably. "Pretty sure."

_Why'd ya come?_

_Because I have to keep you safe._

Liz winced and pinched the bridge of her nose. She wondered if maybe, with the lack of emotional baggage and some free time, she could find a way to control what was left of her ability. These little flash forwards were getting a little disturbing.

A few minutes more passed with only the distant sounds of the city.

"Yo, Beth?"

"Hmm?"

"Why'd ya come?"

Liz snorted softly and smiled.

"Because I have to keep you safe."

Zan scowled. "You ain't from da future, Lady. So you're either crazy or you're fuckin' with my head or somethin'."

"Then I'm crazy." Liz said flatly, starting to get a little annoyed.

Zan laughed, kinda brokenly. "That's great. Really. The only person in the whole world who gives a shit about me is psycho. Fuckin' perfect."

Liz paused as the annoyance withered away. Before she could think better of it, she found herself blurting out her first thought. "Still better than nobody caring."

_Uh. Ouch?_

Zan stared at her from the corner of his eye, then turned his face toward the night sky. Zan sat like that for a few seconds before turning to face her again. His bloodshot eyes had gotten a little teary. "What's that make us, then, Beth? _Friends_?"

She almost answered on instinct, but her automatic 'yes' sounded at least a little bit like a lie in her mind. They didn't know each other like friends did. They didn't enjoy doing the same things, they didn't like the same music or movies or jokes. She didn't know his favorite foods or his favorite childhood memory – she had no idea what his favorite book was, or if he even liked reading. The only detailed things she _did_ know about him she'd learned from Ava almost a decade and a half after he'd died, and she was pretty sure even those things would be colored by age and Ava's love for Zan.

Zan and Liz, though… they weren't friends. Not really. And she had a feeling Zan knew that, and would have resented it had she lied and said they were.

But she also couldn't honestly tell him they had _no _relationship. She'd saved his life. She'd seen him cry. She was helping him through what was likely to be one of the darkest, most humiliating times of his life. She'd even seen him naked, although it was in a strictly clinical capacity.

_Of course we're friends_, she would have said. _I saved your life, didn't I? _But now, hearing it echo inside her head, it felt… _fake_. Pretentious and manipulative, the kind of phrase that led people into deals with the devil. Liz sighed and looked down at the asphalt between her knees.

"I don't know."

Zan smiled tiredly. "Story ah my life."

Another long silence followed. Liz stared at the people walking by – not many of them, considering it was almost four AM, but there was a reason New York was called 'the city that never sleeps'…

Zan glanced at her briefly before looking back up at the sky.

"… Yo – how'd you know where to find me?"

Liz smiled weakly. "I'm psychic."

"Yeah, right." Zan scoffed, and for a moment he almost looked like his usual, sober self. But then he reached out to smack her shoulder playfully, missed and hit only air, and the illusion was shattered. "Really, though. How'd ya do it?"

"I'm serious!" Liz said, mock offense coating her voice. "What, you don't believe me?"

Zan stared at her with narrowed eyes for a long moment. Then he snorted, laid down on the sidewalk and closed his eyes. "Fine – don't tell me. Whatev."

Liz swallowed back an automatic rebuke ("Do you know how dirty that sidewalks is?") and looked up at the sky. Almost the instant her eyes settled on the moon, the sound of a nearby gunshot exploded right beside her. She flinched and spun to look for the source, but a quick glance down at Zan stilled her. He was still lying there, looking perfectly relaxed.

_It wasn't… it wasn't real._ She realized. _It was a microvision._

Liz shuddered and tried to force herself to relax, but the earsplitting sound of that gunshot still rang in her ears. She'd gotten over her fear of guns a long time ago, and usually she didn't mind them…

But long after the cab brought them home, it echoed in her head.

* * *

><p>Nikolas propped his aching feet up and groaned.<p>

_I hate this goddamn city…_

"Sir?"

Nik bit his lip against a curse and turned a baleful glare on the interloper. "What?"

The messenger – a Skin in human attire, the Ashe symbol subtly sewn onto his backpack to mark his caste – swallowed heavily. Nik rolled his eyes and relaxed deeper into his chair, trying to ease away the tension that'd built within him over these past few days.

_I can't believe that stupid bitch killed him. _

Not that he had anything against the actual killing, and some overly childish part of his psyche actually delighted in the mental image of Zan getting ground into the asphalt. No, no – that was all very good, had it been done… oh, a few months from now. After he'd gone to the Summit and served his purpose, not _before_ he could even be put to good use.

Nik didn't care what Vilandra said – Max Evans was going to find a way to mess this up. In fact, being a general annoyance seemed to be the one true strength he had inherited from his predecessor.

Well, _that_ and a flock of besotted female devotees.

Nik sneered.

He hated Max almost as much as he'd hated King Zan.

_In a few months, every one of his incarnations will be dead_. Nik comforted himself as his eyes slid closed. _So what does it really matter?_

Of course, it _would_ matter a great deal to Kivar if this Summit didn't go off without a hitch. Oh – nothing Max said could really change the direction the War was going, but if he agreed to cede ownership of the Granolith to Kivar in front of the four remaining Family Heads, it would become legally binding. Even Kivar's most ardent opposition would have to admit he had the right to it if the former monarch himself had promised it to him.

Kivar would then have to quietly dispatch the boy in such a way that it could not be traced back to him, or it would be possible for his enemies to cast doubt on the legality of that deal. But to be frank, after the Four were transported to Antar that would be beyond neither Kivar's intellect, nor his resources.

Unfortunately, there was no way Max would be so agreeable, which just meant Nik would have to make sure Kivar knew exactly which delicate, lady-like shoulders carried the blame. He'd already taken care of a part of that by informing Kivar of Zan's demise, and being very specific about who was responsible for it.

Kivar had actually been _pleased_, but he didn't understand Max's inability to –

"Uh." The messenger at the door hesitated briefly, but then mustered up his courage and blundered on. Nik blinked, pulling himself back to the present. "Sir, I have some disturbing news."

_… Damn it. What now?_

He turned to face the messenger in the doorway, thoughts of Max Evans and the coming Summit fading away. Nik frowned with warning at the young Skin. Only belatedly did he remember that his teenage, human face twisted the expression into something childishly petulant. "What do you mean, _disturbing_?"

The messenger swallowed, face going just a little bloodless. Some distant part of Nik's mind noted the disjointed look of the expression, and he wondered why so many of the Skins often appeared… inhuman, even though they wore human skin.

"Your, uh, your people who monitor the law enforcement feeds?" Nik nodded absently, but the man continued without seeming to notice the acknowledgement. Obviously the Skin was becoming a bit _too_ at home on this planet; rhetorical questions were not a staple of Antar. "Last night, someone called in and reported what sounded like a genuine Antarian flaunting his powers. Our people checked out the nearby security footage to see if they'd caught anything incriminating, and they noticed something – er – uh, rather, they noticed some_one…_ disturbing. Someone who… wasn't supposed to be there."

On a normal day, Nik would have first focused on the messenger's appalling inability to speak properly, but something about what he'd said caught Nik's attention. His thoughts wandered back to the Summit. "Are you talking about Max Evans? Is he here already?"

"Uh. No, sir." The messenger glanced around quickly, then pulled a VHS from the bag at his waist. "It was Zan. He got into a fight outside a bar, and the whole thing was caught on tape."

"Zan is dead." Nik said sharply, knowing it to be true. Still, the hairs on the back of his neck were starting to sit up, and Nik fought back a shudder. Such a disgusting feeling.

_I hate this body. _

"Uhm. Yes – well, I mean, we… We _thought_ so, but…"

He went quiet. For a minute the two just stood there; Nik trying to will the other Skin to take back his previous statement, the messenger trying desperately to sink into the carpet. Finally, when the curiosity had begun to almost burn, Nik hopped up and snapped. "Give me that!"

He swiped the VHS and left the room. There was a VCR player in the New York compound, but only one and it was located in one of the least-used rooms. It wasn't often they actually had to watch anything humans had recorded; Kivar's supporters most commonly used Antarian crystals to store visual data.

When he got to the right place, the messenger silently sliding in behind him, he immediately shoved the tape into the player. After a few minutes of fiddling around, he found the play button and, with a huff of annoyance, pushed it.

The image was incredibly grainy. It looked down over an alley with several dumpsters, horrible lighting, and a single door. It had probably been placed there to record anyone trying to break in to… whatever the place behind the door was. Judging by the faint throb of base, some kind of club.

"It's about an hour in, sir."

Nik sent a scowl over his shoulder. After another frustrating search, he hit the fast-forward button. A long moment passed without happening before he saw three men zip out through the door. Two of them started beating the third, who curled up on the cement and wrapped his arms around his head. Nik absently reached forward to hit the play button again.

The scene was in black and white. Shadows and image distortion screwed with it even further, creating an oddly pixilated picture. On top of that, the television itself was small and unreliable.

But even despite that, Nik looked at that boy on the ground and felt the stirrings of recognition.

Without realizing he was doing it, Nik leaned in closer to the screen. The two men eventually backed off enough that the third person was totally visible. The boy pushed himself to his feet, hunched back to the camera. The three exchanged words, and judging by the expression on the big man's face, they were not friendly. The boy seemed to deflate for a moment.

And then he reached out one hand and the two men floated into the air.

Nik blinked in shock.

The boy put his other hand against the wall, and bars – _bars!_ – formed around the trio. The dumpsters rose and trash floated up to fly in circles, occasionally hitting one of the two humans still hovering in the air. One was thrown into a wall, the other thrown back toward the bars, and for a moment it seemed to be over.

The boy turned toward the camera...

"Zan." Nikolas whispered.

The image wasn't clear enough to be completely sure, but Nik knew that face. Even if he hadn't, that little display would've been pretty convincing – Nik could count on both hands the number of people he knew with that level of expertise. He wouldn't have even thought Zan capable of it (Max certainly hadn't been when Nik'd faced him in Roswell), except that he'd seen the man perform similar demonstrations back on Antar a lifetime before…

The fight went on for a good twenty minutes before Zan seemed to get bored. For a while everything calmed down; Zan wandered over to the wall and the two men lay insensate on the floor. Then one of the big men got up, picked up a pipe from the ground, and ran at Zan with it. Zan turned to see him coming, but beyond that there was no reaction.

And then the man went flying.

Nik blinked and wondered if he'd missed Zan raising an arm. But someone – a short woman with dark hair – strode into the picture and pulled Zan into an embrace.

Nik blinked again, feeling even more confused.

The vast majority of people in the Whirlwind Galaxy had no special abilities at all. In fact, it was only the higher Houses that possessed them – a cast akin to nobility on most of the Whirlwind worlds. Usually, the stronger the power, the stronger the bloodline, with specific rare abilities (such as Zan's healing, Kivar's empathic force, and Nik's mind bending) never being seen outside of its specific House.

Which meant this girl should at least be familiar to Nik. Oh, not her _face_ – her human Husk wouldn't resemble her native form in the least, obviously. But there were only a limited number of people capable of obtaining a Husk, let alone going to another galaxy and immersing themselves in obscure political maneuvering. Nik had been under the impression he'd at least known of all of them…

Of course, that didn't really change anything – it was entirely possible she was a rebel in hiding who somehow got a hold of an alternative Husk. But if he could determine her identity through some identifiable power, he might be able to determine how (and why) she was in collusion with a dead man, and exactly which faction she'd allied herself with. If nothing else, he might find some weakness in her past that he could use against her.

Unfortunately, there was no further displays of power. Instead, the woman spoke with the two men briefly, one arm still wrapped around an unsteady Zan. Nik wondered if the boy'd been hurt, but he didn't care enough to think about it for very long. A minute later, the two turned and walked out of the alley.

The woman's face remained indiscernible.

"How?" Nik asked several seconds after the two had disappeared.

The messenger didn't ask him to specify. "We… acquired some security videos from shops near the corner where he was hit, and it appears that his body literally disappeared from the scene roughly three seconds after impact. The running theory is that there was some kind of temporal field in place."

Nik turned to stare, eyes wide in surprise. Temporal fields were… well, not _new_, but certainly expensive and hard to come by. Even _he'd_ had a hell of a time getting one to use in Roswell (his second and even more embarrassing encounter with the Evan's boy), and he one of Kivar's favorite Antarian nobles.

"Ask around." Nik ordered, plans spinning in his mind. "See if you can figure out who they bought it from and when. Maybe then we can put a name to whoever's helping him."

Nik hit rewind (slightly easier to find, given its symmetrical similarity to the fast-forward one), and then pause (harder to find – and why did it have two straight bars?). He managed to get the video to still with the woman's profile vaguely visible, but still obscured beyond recognition by shadow. "Are there any other recordings in the area?"

The messenger shook his head. "No, sir. Not for another three blocks."

Nik grit his teeth. "Then check for any signals leaving the area at this time. Ground-lines, satellite, crystalline – whatever, just get it done."

The messenger nodded and turned to leave.

"One more thing."

He turned back. Nik stared at the grainy video, eyes locked on the two figures leaving the alley, mind running obsessively over all the potential damage this could do to Kivar's plans.

_The other Heads _cannot_ know there are two clones._

_And if Kivar ever finds out I issued a false report…_

"I need a couple of the Wiped sent out to find Zan, with strict orders to be quiet about it." Nik commanded the messenger. After a short hesitation, Nik leaned forward, hit 'eject', and let his energy flow through his palm and into the plastic. It melted around his hand, wisps of toxic smoke rising up towards his face.

Nik scowled as the black ooze dripped down between his fingers.

_I hate this whole fucking planet._

"And this time, make sure he _stays_ dead, would you?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: Okay! So. Writings been difficult as hell lately, what with classes and a variety of other distractions right at hand, so depending on whether I get over that or not… updates may be slow. Er – slow_er_, anyway.

Note 1: I do actually think that the drunk-Max episode kinda proved that alcohol brings out the Alien _ID_ in Max, and would probably have the same effect on Zan. The only difference is that Zan's kinda traumatized at the moment, so that side of him is likely to strike out, whereas Max was just a happy-go-lucky drunk all the way around.

Note 2: Liz does not, as of this point, have any romantic feelings for Zan. She's attached to him partly because she feels responsible for him, partly because he looks like Max, and partly because she actually likes him as a person, but she's spent _years _without any – uh… _special_ relationships with the opposite sex. She's out of practice with that kind of thinking.

Besides which, she's a good deal older than him (sorta? Idk how time travel technically affects that… O.o), so the whole 'cougar' thing will probably give her pause.

Review. It's easy. There's a button just under this and everything.


	12. Chapter 10: Explode

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Okay, so… Been a couple weeks. And there are probably some issues with this chapter, but I had to get it out. I would also like some feedback from you guys – I'm pretty sure I know what I'm gonna do anyways, but if you're rabidly against/for it, I can still tweak some stuff.

Should I pair Zan/Liz or not?

Enjoy!

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><p>Liz hadn't slept.<p>

After they'd gotten home, she'd done her best to keep Zan relaxed and occupied until the effects of the alcohol wore off. He'd passed out around six on the couch and slept like a log the whole night through.

But long after Zan had fallen asleep, Liz stared up at the ceiling, listening to the phantom echo of gunfire. It was just one shot, and just one microvision out of half-a-dozen she'd experienced the night before, but she just… she couldn't forget the sound.

Liz'd never been a big fan of guns (probably because she'd, you know, _been shot_) but still – she'd spent a huge chunk of her life fighting a war where most of the combatants were humans. They couldn't exactly fight an Antarian noble face-to-face without _some _kind of long distance weaponry, so she'd kinda had to get used to them. At one point, she'd even gotten so used to the sound that she'd been able to pass within feet of active gunfire without jumping.

But now…

Liz found her anxiety level building moment by moment. Despite knowing logically that they should have plenty of time (what with the lack of SkyWatch cameras and a significantly smaller population of aliens here in the past), she kept glancing towards the door like she was waiting for Kivar himself to push his way through.

She couldn't shake the feeling that they needed to leave.

By the time Zan woke up, Liz was a mess. There were deep circles under her eyes and her hair was a disaster area. She quickly mixed an instant coffee, grimaced at the taste, and tried to ignore the curious glances Zan kept throwing her way.

They had to _go_.

_Today. _

And it wasn't just the paranoia that made her think so. Years of experience running from a damn near omniscient government was screaming at her to get moving and berating her for ever even coming back to this apartment. It might be a different world than the one she'd fought in, but that didn't mean she had to forget everything she'd learned there. Anyway, could she really afford to _not_ take every possible precaution?

She would've packed up and run the night before, but Zan'd been drunk, and telling him he had to leave his home town because he "might have" attracted the wrong kind of attention would not have gone over well. In fact, given his inebriation, there was a good chance he'd have caused some kind of a scene, which was obviously the very _last_ thing they needed right now.

Zan was sober now, though, and they had to have this talk eventually. Staying just wasn't an option at this point; it wasn't safe here anymore.

Now all that was left was to explain that to her temperamental charge.

"Zan – "

"I'm sorry, aight?"

Liz blinked. "Uh – what?"

"I said I'm sorry." Zan frowned – not at her, but down at his feet. The slightest dusting of pink was the only visible sign of his embarrassment. "I… I prolly shoulda told you before I split. I mean… _considering_."

Liz blinked again, then felt a slow smile spread along her face. Her worries about the whole situation eased just a little bit. Last night, she'd been furious with him, but this morning a blushing Zan was willingly apologizing to her for his thoughtlessness, and Liz felt whatever lingering anger she had fade away.

She took a sip of her coffee, grimaced again as the awful taste renewed itself along her tongue, and let her face slip into a mocking scowl. "Yeah, you should've."

Zan turned an annoyed glare her way, but Liz headed off his response with a shrug and an easy grin. "But we're both still alive and, uh – _relatively_ unharmed, so all's forgiven."

Zan stared at her for a moment in surprise before shrugging, a faint but pleased smile curling along the left side of his mouth.

"Actually, there's something I need to tell you, too…" Liz took a deep breath and walked over to pick up her shoes. She stepped back over to the air mattress, quickly jerked one of the tennis-shoes up over the back of her heal, and tried to think of a way to ease into the subject.

Failing that, she blurted, "We need to leave."

The pleased smile was instantly replaced with shocked confusion. "… O_kay_."

Liz pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to rewind. "I mean – no, I… Look, that whole, uh… _episode_ last night could've caused a lot of trouble for us. Still could, actually, and –"

"God, Beth – didn't' I _just _friggin' apologize?" Zan snapped as he pushed himself up from the couch. Liz winced.

"Oh, I know. I don't blame you, Zan, I promise, I just… There's no way to know for sure whether or not you were seen."

Zan rolled his eyes and turned his face away from her, the corner of his jaw clenching visibly. "Look, Beth, I've done way more public stuff than that in the past. Nobody saw, and anybody who did won't give a shit."

Liz felt her own eyes start to roll at his naivety, but she suppressed it. "I'm sure you have. But the situation's different now, Zan. The stakes are higher."

"They're…" Zan scoffed. "The hell does _that _mean?"

"It means there's a war coming, Zan." Liz snapped. The rational part of her mind tried to remind her to keep a grip on her temper, but she was tired of trying to coax the stubborn-ass horse toward water. She was starting to think it might just be easier to kick him into gear. "What the hell did you think the Summit was about? You really think a bunch of alien Kings are going to hop galaxies just to give you and your homies a ride back to Antar?"

Zan scoffed at her reaction, his own temper was just as quick in coming. "Well, if you know so much about it, why not enlighten me, bitch?"

"Okay." Liz snapped back, taking a sharp step toward him and shoving a finger into his chest. "This _bitch _stuff is going to stop. Like, _now_."

"Do _not_,"Zan snarled without giving ground, "Poke me."

There was a certain aggression on his face that made Liz uneasy, and it was just enough to ease a little of her own anger. The earlier frustration was still there rattling its cage in the background, but she was just far enough away from it now to figure out what'd been bothering her about Zan.

He looked… _smug_.

Liz blinked.

Yeah, sure – it wasn't obvious. His anger from before hadn't gone anywhere, but it also wasn't the anger he'd been showing her over the last several days. When he'd gotten pissed off before, Zan'd looked almost crazy; wild and a little scared. But now he was calm and collected, looking down at her with what Liz could only define as a King's scorn.

And yet there were things that didn't quite fit in there too. One corner of his mouth was kind of curled, his jaw was relaxed, and the tilt of his chin was just a little too exaggerated. Underneath the scowl and the bravado, he looked surprisingly confident all of a sudden.

Liz pulled her hand back down and smiled.

The lip uncurled and his chin tilted back down.

_He… He feels more comfortable when I'm angry…_

… How the hell was she supposed to take that? Liz thought she'd actually been pretty nice up to this point – why would he prefer her anger? Did he just not like her, or…

Liz froze.

Her head split wide open and the future came pouring in like acid on her brain.

_Oh. Oh, God, no…_

"… Beth? Yo, Beth!"

"They're coming."

"What?"

Liz didn't answer; she was already running toward the door. To lock it or block it, or hold it closed to buy them some time, she wasn't sure. But underneath it all was the cold certainty that, whatever she was doing, it wasn't going to be enough.

She was half way there when it exploded.

What was left of the door rocketed toward her. She didn't have enough warning to dodge – it came at her too quickly, slamming into her side and tossing her against the dresser. She gasped, caught a bracing breath and turned back around just in time to see the dust clear from the doorway.

Five men ran through…

… and headed straight for Zan.

The guy closest to Zan swung his arm, palm outward, and Zan was lifted off his feet and thrown into the back wall. Zan hissed in pain, obviously regretting the previous night's bar hopping. Liz lifted a hand and summoned her own abilities – the guy pinning Zan to the wall was sent flying sideways. He hit the wall with enough force that he was actually embedded in the wall, broken plaster falling to the floor beneath him.

Liz blinked.

_Woah. That's new. _

Zan dropped to the floor and immediately formed a rippling green shield between himself and the remaining four. The closest man could not stop in time; he hit the shield with an electric sizzle and shot across the room. He laid there underneath the upended table, either dazed or dead.

Unfortunately, Liz's intervention had gotten the attention of one of the three men still standing. One broke off from the others and sprinted towards her. Liz swung her hand around, but she didn't have time to position it right before he was within reach of her. He smacked her hand away with one careless swipe and grabbed her hair.

Liz was suddenly on the floor, ears ringing and seeing stars. Liz was pretty sure he'd thrown her, but she couldn't actually remember it; based on the throbbing pulse in her head, she'd hit something hard enough to concuss her. There was a spot just above her temple that was aching sharply, and the world seemed to be spinning.

_I hate it when they go for the hair._

A black ski mask bobbed into her field of vision, looking like some bizarre doll grinning on a dashboard. Liz tried to push herself up, to get away, but her stomach roiled and her arms refused to work. She could still hear Zan's shield buzzing and the sounds of people trying to push their way through.

Zan was holding them off, but he wouldn't be able to keep that up forever. She recognized the style, the strengths – these were Kivar's men, although what they were doing here when the man himself was not, she didn't know. That meant they were trained almost exclusively to kill members of the greater Families. Of course, Zan being what he was, he had enough power to beat them if he went all out, but he was still too weakened from his recent experiences for anything too prolonged –

Liz suddenly didn't have the space to focus on Zan; her attacker had decided on a strictly physical approach. He came down to her level, straddled her stomach, and wrapped both beefy hands around her neck. He _squeezed_, and Liz choked against the sudden restriction.

She gasped, trying against reason to suck in a breath of air. She reached up to try and pry his hands away, but his fingers wouldn't budge. He pulled one hand away from her neck to grab her wrist, but it didn't ease the pressure. Liz still _couldn't breathe_.

She tried to blast him, tried to summon the power she needed, but it wouldn't come. She couldn't focus enough. In fact, she couldn't control her abilities _at all_, which was a typical – if currently _extremely_ unwelcome – effect of head trauma.

Liz found her mind drifting. She remembered how Isabelle died, how the entire event had been broadcasted worldwide. The expression on Kyle's face the last time they'd spoken, and how she'd always regretted that _that _was how they cut ties. She wondered if Zan was okay…

Feeling dizzied and confused, she stopped trying to use her alien abilities.

Instead, Liz reached up with her only free hand and shoved her thumb into his eye.

He gave a pained shout and let go of her neck. Liz breathed in deep relief and tried to scramble backwards, but his knees pressed in against her bruised ribs. Even worse, the hand still wrapped around her wrist tightened with a crushing force. She made it all the way onto her side before he used his free hand to slam her flat on her back again. The impact drove the air from her lungs and sent lightning arching through her ribcage.

Liz choked in another painful breath, mind surging with renewed desperation.

During that brief second she'd been on her side, she'd spotted the destroyed dresser. The door had broken off, and her backpack had fallen out and burst open, spilling notebooks and crystals all over the floor. Had the situation been different, she would have been terrified for those possessions, but now, looking up at this man…

Her mind was focused solely on the glimpse she'd gotten of her gun.

Before she could do anything about it, he'd grabbed the other wrist as well. He put both into one palm and closed his fingers around them, grinding the bones together almost audibly. Liz hissed against the painful compression. His free hand went back to her neck, fingers digging sharply into either side.

This time Liz had no way of fighting back. She gasped, blood throbbing in her head, behind her eyes, within her tongue... It _hurt_ – the pressure – but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as the pervasive feeling of helplessness. There it was again, that feeling from before; only now it was a thousand times stronger…

Liz hated being powerless, hated being at the mercy of an enemy. And now she would stare meekly up into the eyes of her killer as she died, and that thought repulsed her.

She hated the idea that one of Kivar's slaves would kill her.

She hated that she couldn't stop him.

She hated that feeling.

She hated _him_.

His shirt exploded into flames.

He leapt to his feet, screaming curses as he tried – and failed – to bat it out. He waved his hands quickly over the fire, but he couldn't kill the flames. He screamed, and Liz decided to take advantage of his distraction.

She scrambled backwards on her hands and knees, quickly making her way toward the fallen dresser. She couldn't see it now, but she knew where it was; under the door that'd almost taken her head off just a few minutes before. She reached underneath the slab of wood, her fingers wrapping around a familiar line of cool metal. She flipped it around so that she was holding the grip and turned back to face her attacker.

He was coming at her again, one eye bleeding and swollen, arms and torso blistered and soot stained. Apparently Liz's fire had gone out the moment she'd stopped focusing on it, leaving the man just enough time to realize she'd gotten away. A normal person would've stopped fighting then, would have run or begged or just hidden in a corner to lick his wounds...

But he was one of Kivar's mind-wiped assassins, and he didn't have the luxury of escape.

Liz lifted the gun up and pointed it at him, hating that she would have to use it.

She glanced at Zan from the corner of her eye, watching as his shield flickered and his opponents– the one she'd put into the wall had apparently climbed back out, but another had disappeared somewhere in his place – pressed the advantage. Her own oponent noticed her distraction and lunged.

Liz pulled the trigger.

The sound thundered through the room.

The other three men in the room turned to face her. She pointed the gun at one of the remaining intruders, but with a flick of his wrist the gun flew out of her hands.

Zan's shield collapsed. The first man – who'd kept his focus completely on Zan – immediately started in on Zan himself. The man who'd been focusing on Liz saw the shimmering green disappear and glanced back. Doubtless, he thought Zan the greater threat.

Liz grinned and swept her hand through the air in front of her.

The blast just clipped him on the shoulder, but Liz heard his shoulder pop out of its socket. Liz blinked, still a little shocked at the boost she'd apparently gotten in her powers after opening the box.

But the man she couldn't see wasn't really out of the game.

Before she'd even realized there was someone behind her, he had a mental grip on her body. Eager to drop the number of threats by one, the assassin threw Liz with all the force he could muster toward the wall.

For an instant, just before the impact, Liz felt like she was flying.

And then gravity came back, and everything went dark.

* * *

><p>Zan barely had time to register what was happenin' before pressure slammed against his chest. He felt his back hit the wall and hissed, old bruises and a fresh hangover flarin' all at once. Almost as quickly as it'd happened, he was fallin'; he caught himself on his knees and pulled up a shield.<p>

That gave him a lil' bit of breathin' room, but not much. Plus, one of the remainin' three was… apparently beatin' the crap out of Beth.

The idea of the chick he'd been livin' with getting' her ass handed to her by people apparently here for him rubbed Zan wrong in all kindsa ways. But Zan grit his teeth an' looked back at his own enemies. He had to focus.

He let the shield flicker just a lil' bit, stepped to one side, an' threw the shortest dude in front of the other two. Zan grinned as they did just what he'd expected them to; try an' press the openin' he'd left 'em. Only, instead of grabbin' Zan, they threw their friend through the bathroom door.

Zan lips pulled into a grin.

Who were those guys? They were obviously aliens, but then why the hell were they after Zan? Were they Kivar's men? Did this have somethin' to do with that Summit crap? Were Rath and Lonnie in on it somehow?

Zan tried a few more feints, but they weren't buyin' it anymore. They stayed just outta reach, constantly throwin' energy at his shield to wear him down. Drainin' his strength.

_I hate bein' on the friggin' defensive. _

He grit his teeth an' glanced toward Beth just in time to see the guy on top of her go up in guy started screamin', smackin' at his arms an' chest to put it out, but it didn't do 'im any good. Beth rolled onto her stomach an' scrambled away.

The minute she turned away from the guy, the fire puffed out.

The asshole blinked, took a second to get over the shock of the whole thing, then looked up to find Beth. He saw her stooped over by the dresser, an' he started toward her –

Zan opened his mouth to warn her, but the power of the energy bursts against his shield suddenly swelled, an' he found himself struggling to keep the shield from shattering. He grit his teeth against a frustrated scream – his healing leg was startin' to shake, an' he wasn't sure how much longer it'd hold him up –

An explosive _pop!_ cut through the sounds of the fight.

Zan turned to see Beth swing 'round, smoke still curlin' around the barrel of her gun.

Had the situation been different, Zan might've taken the time to be shocked that _Beth _of all people would be packin' a piece. But outta the corner of his eye, he could see the two guys lookin' at Beth too. _Not _lookin' at him.

And instinct older than he was kicked in.

Zan dropped the shield. One of the guys – the one wearin' a friggin' black turtle-neck an' lookin' like a total cornball – was more aware than the other. Almost immediately, a blast of energy was comin' for Zan's face. Zan dodged, shot one back an' smiled.

He was exhausted an' hurtin' an' startin' to really feel that hangover. But for the first time since he died, he felt like the man he used to be. The one who went out with Rath an' picked fights. The one that could handle himself, who never lost control, who wasn't nobodies victim.

The fuckin' Man.

It felt _great_.

An' then the other guy – the one with the gloves who'd been starin' at Beth – suddenly lurched into the cornball guy. The shot he'd been aimin' at Zan went wild, an' Zan reached out with a curled hand, grabbed the matter in the body of the glove-guy an' _shoved_.

The window shattered, an' the two disappeared.

Zan collapsed onto his knees and took a deep breath. His ribs were burnin', his shoulder an' leg were achin', an' there was a sharp poundin' in his head that was probably only half due to the alcohol he'd drank the night before. He stayed like that for several minutes before he realized Beth was passed out in the rubble.

It never did occur to him that there should be five bodies, where there were only four.

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><p><strong>AN: <strong>Please review. :)


	13. Chapter 11: Crash

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Make sure to read the ending note. Enjoy!

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><p>It took Zan a few seconds to breathe his way past the pounding of his heart an' the burn of the adrenaline. It'd been a while since he'd been in a real fight; in fact, he wasn't sure he'd ever fought somebody with alien abilities who wasn't Rath – which didn't count, 'cause it'd never been serious. Or rather, Zan had <em>thought<em> it wasn't serious, but considerin' everything that'd happened since…

After a second, the silence began to ease him down from his high, back to the dull pain in his leg, the hot ache in his lungs an' the gritty throb of his hangover. An' with that came a more general awareness of his surroundings.

Or, more specifically, Beth's unconscious body in the corner.

Zan hobbled his way over, bein' extra careful to be light on his knee. He looked at Beth – really looked at 'er, past the exhaustion an' the post-fight high – and saw just how beat up she was. Dark handprints were forming on her neck, and one eye was red and swellin' shut. Her shirt had slid up some, revealin' one whole side of her midsection gone mottled an' dark. That jagged, pearly white scar she'd shown him stood out like the path of a comet against the black an' blue.

He hesitated for just a minute, but he knew he couldn't just leave her like that, not after… well, after everything that'd happened these past few days.

Zan gently slid one hand under her neck and let the other rest over her stomach. He reached deep, deep down for that energy he almost neva' used on anybody but his crew, then pulled it up an' out through sweaty palms. He let instinct take over, let the power sink in under her skin, an' he felt himself get dragged along behind it…

But he'd been in such a rush to start that he'd forgotten all about what had happened when he'd healed Jenny. How he'd suddenly watched from her eyes the first time she'd seen her mom shootin' heroin an' really understood what was goin' on. She'd been maybe six, an' the whole thing had been disturbing on so many levels. Still, it'd been years since it'd happened, an' he'd pushed the memory aside.

So he really wasn't expectin' it when he fell into Beth's mind.

* * *

><p><em>She woke up slow, feeling warm and sleepy and comfortable. Her husband was gently stroking her hip and kissing her shoulder. At first, it was just kind of nice, and she smiled softly without opening her eyes. Then the guy started trailing one fingertip down her side and pressed a lingering kiss against the back of her neck. She sighed, tingles racing down her spine… <em>

_"Good morning." He whispered against her neck, and she smiled. She brought her arm up over her shoulder with a smile and dug her fingers into his hair. She could feel his smile against her skin. _

_"Mhmm…" She moaned and stretched out her back. Her fingers slipped down to that point at the very top of his neck that made him melt, and she let her fingernails gently scratch along the nerves. The hair along his neck stood up, just a bit. _

_He made a noise somewhere between a groan and a snicker, his fingers suddenly digging into her hip, and Liz grinned mischievously without even opening her eyes. _

_"Liz…" The guy muttered, pulling her more firmly against him. _

_"What?" She said back, playing clueless. She stretched again, but this time it was less to wake up, and more to tease. Her husband tensed just a little and then pushed himself up. The bed creaked as he leaned over her and pressed a kiss against her mouth. _

_She moaned, eyes still closed as she enjoyed the taste and feel and warmth of him, and she reached up to pull his head towards her again. He brushed his fingertips against her cheek and sighed, the way he always did when he stared at her that way. _

_There was something about the feel of his gaze that had always made her breathless. It'd been true even before they'd gotten together, back when he'd been just another random boy at school. She'd look up and those dark eyes would be locked on her from across the hall, and just like that she'd feel time stop. Seconds or days would pass, and he'd look away and disappear into the crowd again, leaving her to try and convince herself that it was only in her head. _

_It was still like that now, in fact. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel him there; hovering above her and staring down at her, and she could _feel _the way he loved her. All these years later, and it still took her breath away._

_"Max..." she whispered, and opened her eyes to look up at the love of her life – _

And Zan found himself looking up into his own face.

Zan broke the connection with a _snap._

"What the _fuck_…!"

* * *

><p><em>Zan was lookin' into a grubby dressing-room mirror, all of maybe thirteen years old, scrawny and dirty and drownin' in clothes Lonnie'd made outta bed sheets. He was holdin' a necklace he'd snatched for Lonnie, absently rubbin' the flower pendant with his thumb. <em>

_He stepped closer an' looked hard as he could, hopin' to see somethin' in his face that would satisfy the bitter curiosity. He wanted to understand how he could be both a king and a homeless kid. He wanted to know how he could be so much and still be nothing… _

_He didn't know the answer, and the anger that brought almost _burned_. _

_The other three weren't in the dressin' room; they were out in the main store, messin' with the staff and makin' a mess of the merchandise. Zan was distantly – but deeply – aware of them, and he kept track of each of their voices, listening for sounds of trouble or pain. He was responsible for them; they were _his_ people, his _crew._ He couldn't escape it, that conviction; it had been chained to his mind since the day he'd first pulled free of his pod. _

_Underneath all of that – the anger an' the worry an' everything else – Zan could feel other things. Things he didn't let the others see, things he didn't want to think about, most of the time. He was tired – oh, so tired – of bein' responsible, of bein' King, of bein' expected to be a perfect grown-up in charge of the whole damn world even though he couldn't _do _anything. He had powers, yeah – but so did they, and those powers couldn't get them a house or friends or their old lives back. In fact, those powers could get them killed if they weren't careful, an' _he_ had to make sure they were careful, had to protect them every second of every day…_

_His job. His life. An' if he made a mistake, if he got distracted… they could all die. _

_They didn't get that – not really. Their caretaker had explained it to him once, before the shifter had up an' left 'em to find fame and fortune in L.A. The guys in charge of creatin' the Four's hybrid clones had been instructed to add it to his genetic make-up. In order to _encourage_ him to return to Antar. _

_And that made it even worse, somehow. It hurt to know that the most important thing about him wasn't _real. _Knowing didn't make the feeling go away – it didn't make him less afraid that he'd fail, and that the people relying on him would pay for his mistakes. It didn't ease the pressure, or the nightmares, or the pain. _

_He squeezed the stone rose as hard as he could for a second, hopin' maybe it'd break._

_Zan glared at the mirror again and tried to just be _alone_ for a little while._

* * *

><p>"What the <em>fuck<em>…!"

Liz felt herself jerked out of her mind – or, rather, Zan's mind – so suddenly that, for a moment, she didn't recognize the room.

"Yo!" Zan snapped. Liz, dizzy and confused, tried to clear her head of the cobwebs. After blinking a few times, she looked up into Zan's face and winced.

Jesus, he looked pissed.

_What's his probl – _

Reality crashed in again, and Liz felt herself go pale.

_Oh… Oh, shit! How much did he see?_

She realized she couldn't feel any of the injuries she'd sustained during the fight, which meant that he'd apparently healed her – and just about finished before whatever he saw in the Flashes chased him off. Not that that was really relevant, but it at least meant that if he decided to get pissed and start throwing stuff around, one solid hit wasn't likely to do too much damage.

"Answer the damn question, _Liz_!"

_… Oh, fuck. _

Liz's head snapped up, wide eyes locking on Zan's sneer. The corners of his lips twisted into a bitter smirk when he saw her expression. "Oh, _that_ got your attention, huh? _Liz_?"

Liz gaped, mouth opening and closing soundlessly as she tried to come up with something – anything – to undo the damage she'd done. She could literally see Zan's expression closing off, the distrust filling up the air like putrid smog. She was losing him.

_No. No, no – shit, what do I say – _

Sirens in the distance cut off the thought, bringing with them a beautiful reprieve.

"Zan… I can explain everything, I promise." Liz said, voice pleading as she slowly pushed herself up onto her knees. She kept her eyes on Zan; she had to make him accept what she was saying, had to get him to trust her for just a _little bit longer_.

Just long enough for her to _fix this_. Somehow…

"But not now. Right now we need to pack everything up and leave, before the cops or – or anybody else get here." Zan stared blankly down at her, expression unforgiving. "Zan, _please_!"

"Why should I go anywhere wit' you, _Beth_?" Zan snarled and shoved himself to his feet. "I can't trust you! I already know you've lied to me before."

Liz winced, but was very careful not to get up. She needed to stay beneath his field of view – submissive, helpless… The more she seemed to be at his mercy, the less likely he was to see her as an actual threat, even if it was only a subconscious thing. She needed all the help she could get, right now. "I… yes, I lied, I _know_, I just… Zan, this is a really long, _really_ complicated story, and we don't have a lot of _time_ –"

"Well, make some damn time, Beth, 'cause I ain't –"

"Zan!" Liz shouted, and miraculously, Zan went quiet. The look he turned on her was not particularly friendly, but he was quiet and he was listening. Probably the most she could hope for at the moment, to be honest. "We have to go."

Another moment of silence, through which the approaching sirens screamed.

"Please, Zan. I promise – I _promise_, I'll tell you everything! Just… just come with me now, okay? And the minute we're safe, I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Zan scowled but, after a moment's hesitation, gave a jerky nod. Liz jumped to her feet, scrambled over to her jumbled backpack and shoved everything (including the gun) back inside. She grabbed the other backpack – the new one she'd bought for him – and tossed it to Zan. "Get whatever you want to take, but do it quick. We've got maybe ten seconds before we have to be out of here."

He grabbed only the thinnest blanket, his jacket and shoes, and they were out the door. They bolted down the stairs, drawing the attention of the small crowd already forming at the base. Liz winced as her landlord, who was standing at the bottom of the stairs, took note of them and started shouting out furious questions.

God, she was causing this poor old man some serious problems.

_I'm sorry!_

She pushed passed him and then turned to face the little alley that ran along the edge of the bookstore. After making sure Zan was following her, she took off in a sprint, running for the next street. They were almost out before she glanced back and saw a police car pull to a stop in front of the store.

"Perfect," she scowled quietly. _Of course _now_ they'd have a quick response time._

Liz grabbed Zan's wrist and pulled him around the corner into the street.

"Zan, could you do me a favor and change your hair real quick?"

Zan didn't say anything, but when she glanced at him his hair was platinum blonde. Liz blinked – it was a disconcerting thing to see, considering Max had never mastered this particular ability (in fact, none of the aliens except the New York quartet had), but she ignored the unfamiliar image for the moment.

She needed to focus.

"Give me your jacket." She murmured quietly as they walked. Zan glared. "Please?"

Zan rolled his eyes and sneered, but handed her the jacket anyway.

Liz pulled it on, put her hair up with a pencil from her bag, and then wrapped both of her arms around one of his. He tensed, but Liz ignored it and glanced back over her shoulder again.

A cop strolled out of the alley a ways behind them and glanced both directions. Liz looked calmly back, keeping her expression pleasantly curious, before she turned a flirtatious smile at Zan.

He looked pretty disturbed, actually, which wasn't great for their disguise, but it probably wouldn't be enough to give them away. The cop would be looking for a man and women with dark hair, one short, one tall – presumably freaking out. And he might be able to overlook their strolling calmly, but the hair would be a bit harder to explain. There were enough people on this street for them to disappear into the crowd, if they played it right.

Still. No guarantees. "There's a cop behind us. Try not to look so tense, okay?" She explained. Zan went even more rigid for just a second, and then seemed to deflate all at once. She could feel the muscles in his arm relaxing, before he managed to throw a surprisingly casual grin in her direction.

"This damn explanation ah yours better be worth it."

Liz smiled against her nerves and led them to the crappy car parked on the far corner. She'd bought this under another name several weeks back, just as a precaution (one of many rules she'd learned to follow in order to stay off of Kivar's radar). It seemed that she'd actually have need of it now...

* * *

><p>Zan stared outta da window, watchin' the buildin's get smaller an' smaller.<p>

He wasn't sure why he'd gone with her, now. At the time, all he'd cared 'bout was gettin' answers. Who the fuck was she? Why'd she lied to him 'bout it? What _else_ was she lyin' about?

But almost half an hour had passed, an' Beth – _Liz _– hadn't said a fuckin' word outside of tellin' him what to do. They were headed outta New York now, an' he still didn' know if he could trust her that far. Or, shit – at all, really.

"Times up," he finally said, an' looked over at… Beth, Liz, whatever. She was grippin' the steerin' wheel with white knuckled fists. "You gonna fess up, or what?"

"Uh…" Beth bit her lip. She was keepin' her eyes on the road, pretty obviously _not_ talking.

After a long moment of silence, Zan got tired of waiting. "Whatev. Either you start talkin' or pull the hell over an' lemme out."

"No! No, I'm going to tell you, I just… I just have to figure out where to start."

Zan rolled his eyes and looked back out the window.

"Okay. Alright, well… you remember what I told you before? About Max going back in time and all that?"

Zan glanced back at Beth, wonderin' where she was goin' with this. He narrowed his eyes an' nodded, 'cause… well, no shit – 'course he remembered. Crazy shit like that had a way of stickin' with you.

"Well… it's all true." Zan rolled his eyes an' turned away from her. "No, I'm serious! Remember how I said there was this girl he visited? The one Max'd been dating – the one named Liz?"

Zan blinked. Actually, he'd kinda forgotten that part. Once he'd figured out the crazy lady was tellin' him she'd traveled through time, he'd made a conscious decision to ignore the details of her lil' delusion.

The pieces fell together, an' Zan heard himself blurt. "You tellin' me this Liz chick was _you_?"

"Uh… yeah." Beth muttered after a second, lookin' kinda uncomfortable. "Pretty much."

"Bull_shit_."

"Oh, come on!" She huffed, havin' reached her limit. "You saw the Flashes – you must've seen _something_ besides my name!"

Zan snorted. "Flashes? You mean that weird, vivid daydream thing?"

"They… _it_ wasn't a dream." One hand came off the steering wheel to rub her forehead. "They're… kinda like memories, I guess."

"What?"

"Memories." Beth repeated, tone just a lil' bit annoyed. "They're a sort of unintentional side-effect of a human and an Antarian swapping energy."

The 'Flash' he'd seen of Beth hadn't stopped circlin' through his head since they'd left the apartment, an' Zan was assailed by all kindsa uncomfortable ways to interpret that comment. The embarrassment was just one more uncomfortable emotion thrown onto the mix, an' Zan found himself hissin' defensively, "… the hell you mean, _swappin' energy_?"

Beth rolled her eyes. "Healing, among other things."

Zan rolled that thought over in his head, not likin' the thought. Did that mean every time he tried to heal somebody, he'd get to see their pasts? He liked the idea of havin' an advantage an' all, but that just seemed a lil'… sketchy.

"How d'ya stop it?"

Beth blinked and glanced over at him. After a moment's hesitation, she shrugged. "It's not hard, really. You just have to close yourself off, you know? Be distrustful."

_That _was crap. "Yo – I sure as shit don't trust _you_."

Beth tilted her head. "… Oh. No – that won't block _you _from getting Flashes. That'll just stop whoever you're… swapping energy with, from getting them from you."

"Oh." Which… well, woulda made sense, 'cept that Jenny sure as shit hadn't trusted Zan. Or anybody else, actually. So how come he'd seen that crazy shit about her mom? "Any way 'round it?"

Beth cast him a look out of the corner of her eye. Zan couldn't really tell what she was thinkin', but she hesitated a couple seconds before she said anythin'. "If the person's caught off guard sometimes you'll get something. Or if they're unconscious or in shock."

Zan nodded, wonderin' how much of this he could really trust. He'd have to test it all out at some point – make sure she wasn't lyin'. Not that he knew how to do that, exactly…

A sudden thought made Zan curse.

"Did _you _see anything?"

He didn't have to look to feel the tension build, but Zan glanced over at her anyway. Her expression told him everythin' he needed to know. Zan growled. "What the hell did you see?"

"Just… normal stuff. You as a kid at the mall."

Zan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "And?"

Beth cleared her throat an' turned a corner without answerin'.

"Beth!" Zan snapped, an' she glared weakly at him before lookin' back at the road.

"Look, nothing happened! You were looking into a mirror, listening to everybody else mess around. You'd stolen a necklace with a rose on it for Lonnie."

Zan stared for a moment, tryin' in total confusion. An' then the fuzzy image of a little rose made outta rock hangin' from a silver chain formed in his mind, along with the image of Lonnie stickin' her nose up in the air an' sayin' how much she hated roses when he tried to give it to her. He'd ended up givin' it to Ava instead…

Which… well, it was kinda embarrassing, but it wasn't that big of a deal that she'd seen it. In fact, it actually backed up her story; she'd seen somethin' real, and there was no way she'd found out about it from anybody else. Zan doubted anybody in the world remembered that day but him.

Another silence stretched between them, awkward and unfocused. He rested his elbow on the door handle and put his chin down on his palm. The sun was shinin' today. There was just a few clouds and the typical layer of smog coatin' what could be seen of the horizon. The people passin' by looked… happy.

It seemed like a weird time to be havin' conversations like this.

Zan realized he hadn't really gotten the answers he wanted yet.

"So who the fuck are you, Liz?"

Liz squeezed the steering wheel and tried to act more like her usual self.

She hated being this out of control, but when he'd told her to pull over she'd known immediately that he was serious. If she didn't play this right, if she didn't convince him that she really was here to help, he'd get out of the car right now and she'd never see him again. And if he did that, her plans for him would disintegrate right before her eyes.

Years of planning, months of action.

Up in smoke.

And she wasn't sure what was worse – having to convince a seventeen year old that she wasn't going to hurt him, or not being completely sure it was the truth.

After all, being the King had done nothing for Max but cause him pain. What if it was the same for Zan? What if he hated it? What if she was wrong, and he wasn't any good as a King? What if she was manipulating him into a life he would despise, instead of guiding him towards a better destiny as she'd always assumed?

But there was really nothing she could do about it now. She'd started herself on this road years ago, and she'd known then that there would be no going back. So she let go of the doubts and tried to forget her insecurities, and instead focused on trying to repair the mess she'd made of things.

"My name's Elizabeth Parker." Liz swallowed. "I usually go by Liz, but Beth's a nickname I use sometimes, too. I grew up in Roswell, where I met your double, Max Evans. We didn't really have much to do with each other until the day some jerk with a gun got into a fight at the restaurant I worked in and shot me. Max healed me, and I found out who… and _what_ he was. Before long a few other humans got pulled into the loop, and then the government was snooping around, and… well, a lot of stuff happened. And eventually we had to leave Roswell.

"We spent a while traveling from place to place. Max and I got married, I got pregnant, Michael and Maria finally tied the knot. For a while, I thought we were finally _there_, you know? The place where every fairy-tale story ends, after the wicked witch dies. Happily ever after. And then things went really_… really_ wrong, and Maria and my baby died. Kivar had pretty much won back on Antar, so he brought his war to Earth. We jumped right in - although I'm not sure anymore if it was so much because we wanted to save the world, or if we really just wanted to hurt the guy who'd cause us so much pain.

"It… didn't go the way we'd hoped. One by one, everybody started dying. It just kept getting worse and worse every day, and somehow I just – I _knew _that somehow we'd missed our chance to beat him. I could _feel _it, you know, like… like the way you can feel it when somebody's watching you, or when you're about to get in an argument with a friend. Just… something in the air. But then I remembered when I was younger and an older Max had crawled through my window, telling me he'd come from the future to save the world.

"So I came up with this plan. I'd learn everything I could, everything that might have helped had we known about it earlier in the war, and I'd write it down and take it into the past with me. I'd give it to somebody I could trust not to go to Kivar, somebody that would share it with the Roswell Four. I eventually decided on you because of Ava – "

Zan head spun toward her. "Wait a minute – _Ava_? You knew Ava?"

Liz sighed, vaguely disappointed that he was obviously still angry at her friend. "Yeah. She wasn't involved in what they did to you, Zan – you've got to know that. She's not that kind of person."

Zan snorted. "Yeah, maybe. But she didn't come back for me either, did she?"

Liz had no idea how to respond to that, so she ignored it and continued where she'd left off. "I was talking to Ava in the future, and she brought you up, for like… the thousandth time. She talked about how you defended her against Lonnie, and how you always seemed to be looking for a fight. And it occurred to me that if you'd still been alive when the war started, things might've gone a lot differently…

"From there it was mostly guesswork. I couldn't guarantee you'd ever take the journals to the Roswell group, but I figured as long as you fought against Kivar, eventually they'd come to _you._ And considering Kivar's everlasting vendetta against all things King Zan, it was pretty much a given that you'd be fighting against him.

"The rest of it I figured I'd leave up to you guys. With the information I was going to leave behind, you'd have the power to change just about anything you wanted to."

Liz opened her mouth to finish the story – to talk about how she'd come back and saved him, how she'd woken up and realized she hadn't disappeared – that nothing had changed… but honestly, it would probably be better if she didn't bring it up. It was the most unbelievable part of her story, and she didn't even have a way of explaining why it'd happened. How could he possibly _not _be offended by hearing the phrase, 'You being alive doesn't change anything?'

"So. Anythin' else you wanna start bein' honest 'bout?"

After a moment of thought, Liz remembered something else and bit her lip. Just because she'd decided to tell him everything didn't mean she'd lost her mind. And this… this was –

"… Jesus – _what_?"

"Rath and Lonnie are coming back to New York." Liz blurted out. She didn't actually feel any more secure with this subject than the last, but Rath and Lonnie were definite sore subjects for him, and Liz knew it. If it came out later that she'd hidden something about them from him, he'd never forgive her.

"… Stop the car."

Liz winced. "Zan – "

"_Stop the car!_"

" – that's really _not a good idea_ –"

Liz felt the brake pedal under her foot suddenly drop.

Tires squealed and smoke rose up from the friction – her tire's squealed in screaming protest. Liz cursed and gripped the wheel, trying to guide the now fish-tailing car off to one side of the road. A dozen cars honked, angry drivers flipping her off as they zoomed past.

Liz got about halfway off the street before the vehicle finally stopped, and before she could even take a breath, the passenger door flew open.

"Oh, you – _son _of a _bitch_, alien-ability abusing little… You probably _ruined_ the _goddamn_ car…" Liz's hands shook as she clicked off her seatbelt and jumped out of the car without thought, nearly getting hit by a passing convertible as she did. She jumped back against the car, heart pounding with the sudden surge of adrenaline. Zan was walking back the way they'd come, looking to Liz like nothing so much as a normal teenager throwing one hell of a temper tantrum.

"Zan!" Liz shouted, adrenaline making her even more angry. She ran after him, steps brisk and arms raising at her sides. "What the hell are you doing!"

"Goin' back." He snapped.

"Going –" Liz stuttered, mouth falling open. "Are you _stupid_? Zan, those guys weren't acting on their own! They had enough power to find you less than a day after that little bar brawl of yours! If you go back to your place now, they'll be on you in _minutes _– _!_"

Zan spun back toward her and took a few hurried steps in her direction. Liz slid to a stop, dust rising up next to her feet. In less than a second he was inches from her, face twisted into a bitter snarl. "What the hell else am I supposed to do, Beth? Let 'em get away with it?"

Liz stared up at him, at the lines on his forehead and the dark circles under his eyes. The grief, rage and confusion warring in him showed clearly on his face. She'd never seen him look _less _like a child.

Liz shook her head, but when she spoke again, her voice was softer. "No, Zan. Just… just _please _wait. Wait until you're stronger – until you know more, until you're sure it'll be safe –"

Zan scoffed and turned away.

"Zan–" Zan looked back over his shoulder at her, face once again closed off.

"_No_, Beth." He said slowly. And then, slowly, she saw something else form in his expression. His eyes narrowed a little and the corners of his lips turned down. Liz knew even before he spoke that she wouldn't like what he had to say.

"How do I know you weren't behind that attack, anyway?"

Liz's mouth dropped open just a little at the accusation. She'd just gotten the crap beat out of her! Shit, she'd _shot_ somebody in there! Killed him! How could Zan possibly think –

"No better way to earn my trust, right?" Zan cut in, and for one ridiculous moment Liz wondered if she'd said it all aloud. "For all I know, maybe you knew those guys were comin' because _you knew they were comin'_. Maybe this is you tryin' to get me to trust you, to leave New York with you so you can do… well, whatever the fuck you've been tryin' to do."

Liz scoffed and rubbed her hands over her face. "I can't believe this – "

"Go on, tell me again how you're from the future, here to save my life. Which, should I say, is probably the lamest fuckin' Terminator rip-off I ever heard –"

"Fine!" Liz snapped, and stepped right up to him. His eyes widened for just a second before he caught himself and wiped all traces of the shock from his face. "Then look."

"… What?"

"Look in my head." Liz lifted her arms up by her sides. Zan stared. "I'm serious! You want to know if I'm telling the truth, right? Well, go ahead! I don't have anything left to hide."

Zan watched her for a long moment before stepping back. The move was such an obvious sign of his nervousness that Liz knew it had to be unintentional. He just wasn't open enough to show that kind of weakness.

Having apparently realized the same thing, Zan scowled and straightened his shoulders. "You're lyin'."

"I'm… What?" Liz gaped. "How could I be lying, I haven't even –"

"You're bluffing." Zan corrected, going a little red. "You're just tryin' to make it _look_ like you're bein' up front so I –"

Liz wanted to _scream_.

Some part of her knew that what he was doing made sense, from a purely defensive psychological standpoint. He'd been hurt before, by people he'd had a thousand times more reason to trust than her. She'd lied to him already, even though it was over something stupid.

And he was scared.

But that part of her was a small, rational voice floating in a sea of frustration, and Liz could barely hear it over the pounding in her ears. All she'd done for him, to save him and heal him and not _strangle_ him every time he looked at her like _she _was the alien…

All of that, and he still didn't trust her?

"I _don't _bluff." She growled.

She closed that short distance between them, reached one hand around his neck and pulled him down until his lips crashed against hers.

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: Sorry guys, but it's gonna be even longer till the next chapter comes out. I already have it written, but the one after that is giving me hell like you wouldn't believe. So anyway – I figured I'd give you something… _entertaining_.

Btw – this doesn't mean there'll be a Liz/Zan pairing. It was something I'd been planning from the beginning, because I genuinely don't believe a guy in Zan's situation could trust a story like Liz's without some kinda proof, and because her timeline technically doesn't exist anymore… the only really solid proof I could think of was the Flashes.

That being said, it doesn't mean there _won't _be a Liz/Zan pairing either. :3

Review!


	14. Chapter 12: Crossroads

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Okay, so… long wait. I really am sorry, but unfortunately, I can't guarantee it won't happen again. Or that it won't be worse next time. But I am trying, so with any luck, you might be seeing the next chapter within a month. (:

* * *

><p><em>Liz woke sitting up. <em>

_For a long moment, she couldn't remember where she was or whose arms were wrapped around her middle. But although she couldn't see the face pressed against her shoulder, the familiar scent wafting off the thick brown hair was her husband's. She recognized it even diluted by sweat and… and something else... _

_Liz's head dipped forward with a groan, and only then did she see the arms around her torso. They were Max's, alright – but they were blood-soaked and shaking, knuckles white where he gripped the fabric of her demolished shirt. There was something… something about that that scared her, but her head was too fuzzy to think too strongly about it. _

_Max was crying. _

_She hadn't noticed before, but he was; he sobbed into her shoulder, and the sound buried itself into her stomach and added to that unnamable fear. He was moaning her name, over and over, saying something about thinking she was dead… _

_Liz picked her head up, trying to hold it in place despite the weakness that had sunk into every inch of her. Her neck ached at the effort, but her eyes landed on movement across the room._

_Michael was crying. _

_It was strange. She'd… she'd never seen him do that before, but he was. He kept calling for Maria, voice soft and agonized. Liz couldn't focus on him at first, but then she realized that he was rocking back and forth, back and forth, curled around something…. Something… _

_He rocked just a little too hard, and Maria's head turned toward Liz. _

_Vision going suddenly clear, Liz felt Maria's green eyes lock on her from across the room. They were emptier than she'd ever seen them, glazed and unfocused and not at all like they should be. The dent in her head was oozing off-color gore, and that fear turned into a deep, unnerving calm. _

Shock_, she distantly realized. _I'm going into shock.

_"Oh god, Liz, I thought I'd lost you," Max was saying, pulling his head up and pressing his lips in a hard kiss on her shoulder. Liz could barely feel it; she was still looking at Maria, and Maria was still looking at her. Liz kept expecting her to crack a grin, or roll her eyes, or just smile that way she did when they had a secret. But it didn't happen, and the stream of blood and brain running down her face didn't disappear. "I – I just… there was so much blood, and I couldn't… I'm so sorry Liz!"_

_Liz felt like she was floating. _

_"I couldn't save our son!" _

_Liz was being hugged. _

_The boy hugging her was skinny and gentle and oh, god, so warm! He was breathing, and his heart was beating, and Liz couldn't stop crying she'd missed him so much – _

_"Alex, you were dead!" She mumbled into his shirt. He hugged her tighter and laughed – she could feel that calming rumble through his narrow shoulders like a lullaby. _

_"What're you talking about, Lizzy? You have a nightmare?" _

_Liz choked on a watery laugh and nodded. "Yeah. God, it was _horrible_, Alex, I –"_

_"Oh come on, Liz. I'm not dead. I'm right here." _

_And then Liz woke up._

_There were no tears in the waking world. Instead she rubbed the back of her neck, sore from falling asleep at her desk, and went back to researching Alex's Sweden itinerary. She had most of it figured out, but there was one picture she couldn't place. She would keep looking – double check a few places before she jumped to any conclusions, but… she had a feeling this was it. Something about this photo was going to lead her to the answers she needed. _

_It was just a feeling though, and even if she was wrong, even if this picture meant absolutely nothing… she'd keep looking. _

_Alex didn't kill himself, and she would prove it. To everyone. _

_The poem came back, words echoing through her head again and again the way they had ever since she'd first read them. It'd become her personal mantra, her chant, her _promise_,_ _and some part of her mind was saying it over and over again every minute of every day. _

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

and miles to go before I sleep,

miles to go before I sleep…

_"- infamous Rebel leader Michael Guerin swarmed the World Capitol in force yesterday, taking just over two hundred men on a suicidal attempt to assassinate King Kivar. Fortunately, despite initial reports, this terrorist attack did _not _succeed. King Kivar is currently recovering in an undisclosed location –" _

_Liz took a sip of her coffee and glanced around. There wasn't a single person in the café so much as looking in the direction of the television – they were too afraid to be caught appearing sympathetic – but Liz could see the disappointment written in the tension in their hands and the slump of their shoulders. Liz scowled and quickly brought her cup up again to hide the expression. _

If you want him dead so much, why don't _you_ do something? _She mentally asked the room at large. But she already knew the answer, and she didn't even really blame them. Besides, it wasn't the real question anyway, was it?_

Why didn't _I_? _She asked herself, and couldn't answer._

_Oh, God, Michael… _

_" – We have also received reports that Guerin was killed in the attack. Although this has not yet been confirmed, speculation is already running rampant. Will this mark the end of Earth's ill-fated Rebellion? Will the general human populace finally see reason? _

_"Only time will tell." _

_Liz glanced at the screen as the woman looked down at her notes, and read all the same signs. Despite her scripted speech, this woman wasn't any happier than they were with the news. The screen faded to black, and then an ad for the new hybrid laptop (equipped with all the newest crystalline tech, supposedly) chirped out prices against a neon pink and yellow screen. Liz stared and wondered if that was really all the coverage Michael's last stand was going to get. _

Of course it is_, she realized. _Can't make him a martyr, can they?

_Liz took one last sip of her coffee and forced back the bitter bile in her throat. _

Don't worry, Michael.

When I'm done, none of this will matter anymore…

* * *

><p>Liz was no stranger to sharing memories.<p>

Once upon a time, when her relationship with Max was still new, Liz had thought it was something magical. Distant galaxies, personal fantasies, the deepest and most intimate regions of his heart – all beautiful pieces of the world through the eyes of a half-alien prince. A young girl's inner-romantic could want for nothing more.

When Max had first intentionally used the flashes to show her how she made him feel, Liz had secretly begun to believe that this sharing made them special; more intimate than other couples, genuine halves of a whole. And in some ways it was, but it carried with it a terrible downside that Liz hadn't really understood until, almost a month into their marriage, she'd gotten a flash of his night with Tess.

She'd pulled free, thrown up, and refused to look at him for almost a week.

The kind of sharing that flashes allowed left for absolutely _no _privacy. If you didn't stay in control every second, than anything that passed through your mind could be transmitted to your partner in all its full-color glory.

Eventually, they'd learned to deal with it, and when the occasional uncomfortable or downright painful memory came up, they did their best to deal with it together. Some days had been harder than others, in that respect.

But then the War had started, and Liz hadn't been able to ignore the potential benefits of that ability. Using flashes, one spy could share intimate details of Kivar's meetings without ever saying a word. A comatose man could transmit vital information. Key intel could be stolen through a kiss…

The practical applications were just… _phenomenal_.

So Liz had had to learn how to control it as much as it could be controlled. Over the years, she'd lost count of the number of strangers she'd let into her mind, and it no longer seemed even remotely magical to her. It, like every other alien ability, was a tool to be harnessed.

When she'd first reached up to kiss Zan, Liz had just been desperate to prove a point. She'd saved his life, healed him, kept him fed and clothed, and he still just wouldn't _listen_! With the flash from earlier that morning still fresh in her mind, she'd thought that if she could just do that _again_ and get him to see something… hell, _anything_ that would prove she was telling the truth…

Unfortunately, there wasn't a chance in hell he'd willingly sit down and meditate with her.

Before she'd really had the time to think it through, she'd grabbed him and pushed her lips against his. She hadn't really _felt _it – not at first, when she was just trying to force her mind to stay relaxed. She was too unprepared to focus on anything specific, and so she'd just tried to push every painful memory of the war through the kiss to show him what she'd been through to get here. To show him everything she was trying to stop.

But then she'd noticed how warm his chest was, pressed against hers, and how his hands had reached up instinctively to hold her waist. And suddenly she could feel every inch of him – the stubble on his chin, the strength in his shoulders, the soft slant of his mouth…

It'd been so long since anyone had held her like this. Since she'd _let _anyone hold her like this. In fact, there really hadn't been anyone for her since Max –

Liz froze.

She wasn't kissing Max.

She was kissing a boy, a _seventeen year old _boy, who looked _just like her dead husband_.

If she had a hundred years, she still couldn't list all the reasons this was wrong.

Liz jerked back, one had coming up instinctively to cover her mouth.

_Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…_

Some part of her mind was screaming at Liz to turn away and run, to avoid the inevitable fallout of her actions. She'd just kissed a teenager. And, yeah, maybe it was more complicated than that, considering he'd lived some fifty years before he'd been murdered and cloned. And maybe he was just a few months from being legal, but even still, it was _weird _and wrong and –

_You have a job to do._

Liz swallowed as the ice-cold voice of her inner Rebel cut through her ridiculous panic. She grabbed onto her famous willpower, forced down a gulp of air and tried to think rationally.

She was here for a reason, and ditching Zan on the side of the road while she indulged her own discomfort was simply not an option. So no matter how embarrassed she was, no matter how frightened and disturbed, she would have to deal with that later, and in some other way.

Right now, she had to push the weirdness aside and do everything she could to keep him from going back to New York. Because if she didn't, there wasn't a doubt in her mind he'd be killed.

* * *

><p>Zan was thrown from the visions – Flashes, whatever – and into reality with such a violent twist it almost made him sick. The lingering image of the dead blonde chick didn't exactly help, either, but the worst thing was the feeling.<p>

The first one, with all the blood an' the cryin', had been empty of feeling. Thinkin' back on it now, he was pretty sure it was 'cause Beth'd been goin' into shock or something. Her clothes had been pretty much bathed in red, an' Zan couldn't think of any other reason for that pervasive, creepy fuckin' sense of vacant calm.

The second had been just as weird. The dream at the beginning had been all about needin' to cry so bad your throat burned, but the minute she woke up her grief got… _diluted_. It'd been there, still, beggin' for tears in the background of her head, but it'd paled behind the howlin' rage bubblin' up right at the front. That anger was like dog with rabies, desperately lookin' for somethin' to tear apart.

To be honest, the third had been the least disturbin', but it'd been hella fuckin' weird all on its own. Everythin' had looked just a little _off_ – the tables an' TV an' even peoples cloths. Not quite right, not quite normal.

An' then the newscaster chick had started talkin' about Kivar – a dude who should be half a fuckin' _universe_ away, keepin' Zan's throne warm. Which, really, could only mean one thing.

Beth was tellin' the truth.

_Shit_.

Zan pushed back the memories an' the urge to puke. He couldn't think about all this shit right now. It was… there was way too much to sort through, an' Lonnie an' Rath were makin' their way back to the Big Apple – goin' home.

Where he could be waitin'.

Did it really even matter if she was tellin' the truth? It's not like he could just leave! Not now, not when he was _this close_ to bein' able to make those back-stabbers fuckin' _pay_.

But Beth was tellin' the truth.

An' who knows when he'd get another chance to go after them? What if, by some fucked-up twist of fate, he was wrong about how sketchy this was an' the head-honchos at the Summit decided to let 'em go home? What if Zan spent the rest of his life rottin' on this damn planet while the traitors who'd screwed him over chilled back home?

How could he turn his back on what could be his only chance for vengeance?

_But Beth – _

"Zan?" Her voice was kinda shaky, but it still pierced the confusion in Zan's mind an' caught his attention. He looked up at her, only then realizin' that he was bent in half to fight off the nausea, an' saw the tension in her freakishly blank face. "You… you okay?"

Zan snorted. "What do _you_ think, Beth?"

There wasn't any real venom in his voice, but Beth went quiet anyway. Zan decided to take advantage of it an' try to get his shit together. He straightened his back and took a deep breath, but his pseudo-calm was shattered when another car passed by too close.

Zan cursed and stepped further away from the road.

They'd done this to him. This… this new _phobia_ or whatev, makin' him jump every time a damn car of any type passed within twenty feet of him. He'd lived in New York his whole life, an' he'd never been afraid of cars before. Now, tires squealin' could wake him from a dead sleep and leave him shakin'. They'd done this to him – Lonnie an' Rath.

He didn't realize he'd punched the guardrail until the pain of bashed knuckles hit him. He shook his hand out but didn't heal it. The pain helped him focus.

Zan paced besides the guardrail, facing the road before them an' then turnin' toward the city behind. Back an' forth, back an' forth, torn in two completely different directions.

_I… I don't know what to do._

"Zan, I…" Beth started again, and Zan cast a brief look her way. "… I'm sorry, I –"

"Don't." Zan stated, soundin' kinda ragged.

"But I –"

"No," Zan sighed, draggin' the fingers of one hand over his scalp with a lil' more force than was necessary. "I get it. You did what you had to, no big. Really."

Except… well, it _was_. 'Cause if Beth was tellin' the truth, than he _owed_ her. She'd saved his life – more than once, now – an' she'd nursed his sorry ass back to health when nobody else in the world would've bothered. An' if she'd had some idea all lined up to use him an' ditch him or kill him or whatev, he would've walked away no problem. But Zan paid his debts, which meant if she was really from the future, really just helpin' him stop somethin' he'd wanna stop anyway... then he owed it to her to follow her lead until he could pay her back.

But he had more than one debt to pay.

"What the hell 'm I supposed to do, Beth?" He demanded into the silence, hatin' how desperate he sounded. He turned to look at her, face pullin' back into a pained snarl an' hands reachin' up to clench in his hair. "'Am I just supposed to let 'em _get away_ with it?"

Beth blinked. "I… I don't know."

Zan watched her for a second, then turned back to pacin'.

"I need your help, Zan." She pleaded. Zan snorted bitterly, an' Beth took another step closer. "I _do_!"

"For what?" Zan snarled quietly, "You can't tell me you traveled to the goddamn past an' didn't have a fuckin' back-up plan!"

"Sorry to burst your bubble, Zan, but I _don't_," Liz growled, "I knew when I first started planning that you'd be my best shot, okay? And I don't exactly have the luxury of second tries, here!"

Zan narrowed his eyes at her, but kept pacin'. Somewhere underneath the sounds of traffic, he heard Liz sigh.

"Zan, _please_."

Her voice, when she said it, was softly sincere and almost hopeless.

Zan froze.

"I can't…" The words had to force themselves past a closing throat as his eyes began to blur with tears. "I can't just do _nothing_, Beth. I can't just let 'em get away with it. I _can't_."

A small hand gripped his wrist an' gently turned him. Beth looked up at him, lookin' both determined an' weirdly calm.

"We won't." She stated with quiet authority. Zan stared at her, wonderin' how she stayed so controlled. An' despite years of takin' charge of other people's safety, all Zan really wanted to do was let it _go_… "I promise."

He glanced back towards the city skyline an' thought about what it meant to him. There were times when he loved it, when the movement an' the rhythm of it seemed to fit perfectly with his own. There were times when he hated it – when he looked at the blank faces of a thousand people who didn't give a rat's ass whether he lived or died, an' it made him want to scream.

His crew had grown up there. They'd eaten its food, slept under its lights, and taken every damn breath half full of its smog. They were all aliens, and yet for better or worse, it was home.

Zan turned toward Beth, the chick who'd saved his life an' now wanted him to pay it back, an' knew without askin' that she wouldn't go with him. If he went back now, he wouldn't be the guy she needed, and she'd have to scramble to find some way to salvage all of this. If he went back now, he'd be going alone, and he'd spend the rest of his life alone.

That thought made Zan go very still. People thought, 'cause he was quiet, that Zan was a loner, but that wasn't exactly true. Zan needed people – needed family – like other people needed hobbies or friends or money. It was the way he was programmed; to need community so badly that he'd do anything to protect it, and to keep it for himself. Whether that was actually him or just an added touch via the geneticists who'd shoved them in the pods, he'd never known. But it didn't' really matter.

Zan looked back at the city, and felt the answer form clearly in his mind.

He'd lived there, but he'd died there too. And he had a feeling that if he went back now, if he set up his ambush an' killed Lonnie an' Rath… he'd spend the rest of his life dead in that city.

Someday he'd be back. Someday he'd finish this.

But he wasn't ready yet.

With a resigned little smile, Zan nodded. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>"So to sum up," Nik hissed into the cell phone, fists clenching reflexively as he stared out the side window of the subway. "Somehow, five of Kivar's elite assassins not only failed to eliminate the two Rebels I sent them after, but attracted the attention of half a city block and actually managed to get <em>themselves <em>killed?"

_"Uh – well, er… Yes. I mean – y-yes, sir, that's… pretty much what happened." _

"And what part of _quietly_ did you not understand?"

_"They – er… I mean, _'we'_, obviously. _We_ ran into some unexpected resistance, sir." _

"Unexpected…" Nik gaped for a second. Then the ridiculousness of that defense went from surprising to annoying, and his jaw shut so quickly the resulting click made his teeth ache. "What kind of _resistance_ could they possibly have faced from a half-dead teenage boy and his backwater Skin nanny?"

_"We weren't facing just _any_ teenage boy! That was Ki-"_ the voice on the other end stuttered to a halt. With significantly less zeal, he finished with, _"That was the clone of a scion of a Greater House."_

_Fifty years._ Nik mentally railed. _Fifty years dead and even your enemies still call you King._

"That so-called _scion_," Nik snarled, obviously startling the old woman several seats down. Feeling stupid, he dropped his voice to a poisonous hiss. "Wears eyeliner and got his ass kicked by a _car_. Don't try and distract me from your pathetic failure, Jerry."

_"Sir, I understand." _Jerry said after a brief hesitation, sounding ridiculously contrite. _"But I can fix it. There aren't even any bodies, so –"_

"So, _nothing_." Nik snapped. "If anything, that's even _worse! _A dozen people must've seen those corpses disintegrate on impact. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to do a mind-wipe on that scale?"

_"Yes, sir. I mean – no, sir, I don't. But I –_"

"I really don't want to hear your excuses." Nik sneered. "Just _clean it up_."

Nik shoved his thumb into the _End _button with almost enough force to break the phone before flipping it shut. The old lady was glaring at him now; she obviously couldn't actually hear his conversation, or she wouldn't be looking so secure, but the violence in his voice had undoubtedly bothered her.

He tossed his most dangerous look in her direction.

She huffed and looked away, not at all intimidated.

Nik growled quietly and sank in the seat, turning his eyes back toward the window. Back home, that same look would've sent grown men scrambling for something to hide behind, desperate to avoid the wrath that'd sent Nik's older brother to an early grave. But here, on this planet of primitive animals whose most advanced evolutionary trait was the thumb, what'd they do?

They _laughed _at him.

That wasn't anywhere near his biggest problem now, though, because if Zan showed up at the Summit Nik would be worse than just outcast. If he lost Kivar's favor after he'd betrayed every one of his formal alliances under Zan's reign, he'd likely be stripped of both wealth and House. Which meant he'd end up stuck here for the rest of his life, spending eternity as a prepubescent human.

_Joy._

What made it worse was that he'd sent every member of the Red Hand he had at his disposal, and now all but Kaj were dead and Zan was still running around somewhere, causing trouble.

Honestly, Nik wouldn't have really minded their deaths had they taken the little brat with them. It hadn't taken a genius to figure out that Kivar had sent them to Earth as spies, and Nik deeply resented their placement. There's no way he could publicly act against them, but had Zan died the way he should have, it would've only been a short while before Nik found a subtle way to get rid of the five agents himself.

But no – they'd not only failed to kill the boy, but they'd also made enough noise that even the denizens of New York had to take notice. The only remaining survivor of the five wouldn't be around for long; he was one of the many loose ends Jerry would be "cleaning up." It was the only way to insure this embarrassing episode didn't find its way back to Kivar, after all.

That didn't take care of Zan, though.

Nik bit his bottom lip and contemplated his options.

He was almost to his stop when he pulled out his cell-phone again – which was awkwardly boxy and primitive, like most Earth tech – and dialed a number he barely remembered. It rang three times before anybody answered.

_"Yeah?" _A feminine voice muttered drowsily.

Nik didn't bother with the usual greetings. "It's Nikolas."

There was a long, oddly meaningful pause. _"Little Niky? Wow. Long time no speak, huh?"_

_God, I hate that nickname…_

Nik grit his teeth. He hated dealing with her, but he probably would've had to get a hold of her to get rid of Kivar's spies, anyway. There was nobody else he knew that would actually _enjoy _keeping secrets from Kivar.

"I need a favor."

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: I'm still stuck where I was stuck before, but I'm working on it. If you want to help, all you have to do to motivate me is to send a nice, long review. (:


	15. Chapter 13: Symmetry

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Just finished posting the last chapter and I changed my mind. I had this all planned out and ready to post and all, I was just planning on waiting until I had more written for later chapters. But then I started editing it, and I realized that because this chapter is exclusively side characters, it would probably be kind of a let-down if I posted it a month down the line after a long-ish wait.

Make no mistake, though – this is _not _filler. There's a bunch of little clues in here about my plans for future plot developments. So much foreshadowing, you have no idea.

Enjoy. (:

* * *

><p>In the elevator, Ava was careful to stand to the right and one step behind Zan.<p>

Or Max, rather.

There were times when she still had to remind herself not to use his real name when she talked to him, but Max, Isabelle and Michael were all really touchy about their Earth identities. Just one more thing in a very long list that made her different from them...

Their Protector had spent her entire childhood making sure she knew who she was. Queen of Antar, wife of Zan – Ava of the House of Morning. _That _was her true identity. This life, this body… they were all simply pieces of a momentary disguise, there to keep her safely hidden until she could go home.

But the other three… they didn't know that. They'd spent too long immersed in their masks, devoid of all memories of their past, and now they seemed to think taking them off was some kind of surrender. Like they were giving up their real lives, instead of taking them back.

Ava pushed aside the odd mental tangent, donned her mask as Tess, and smiled at Max. He was looking kind of twitchy, and unlike most of his human quirks, she actually found it kind of endearing. In their last lives, he'd been born and raised in the biggest city on Antar; but in this one, a city a quarter of that size intimidated him.

She grabbed his hand, and his fingers grabbed hers like a lifeline.

"This is a mistake." Max whispered, breathing heavily.

Tess smiled, brow crinkling in confusion. "You've been looking forward to it all day."

"I mean this whole thing." Max… sort of corrected. "Coming here, the city. Rath, Lonnie… this whole thing."

To be honest, a part of Tess agreed. Her Protector had made his deal with _Kivar_, not Nikolas. Tess remembered enough of their last lives to know that Nikolas was a pretentious, scheming little backstabber, and she'd rather spend another decade on this planet than trust their passage home to _him_.

Even worse, there was something seriously wrongwith Rath and Lonnie. Unlike Michael, Rath seemed to have retained none of his original nobility. Tess had seen the kind of books Michael read and heard his (often spirited) debates with Max over…well, just about anything, really. And, because of that, she'd learned that he had a surprising depth to him that she vaguely remembered having glimpsed in the original Rath. But Tess had yet to see any of that in this new Rath.

Vilandra had always been, in all possible contexts, a little Princess. She was a beauty like her mother, and she'd learned early how to wrap people around her little finger. But other than the arrogance typical of members of the Higher Houses, she'd actually been a relatively gentle girl; she spent all her time accessorizing and trying to take care of Zan and Rath. She'd been, on the whole, a consummate mother hen.

But when Lonnie looked at her, Tess saw none of that gentle reprove.

All Tess could see was fury.

Oh – around Max, she played the sweet, loving sister, and she'd never actually said or done anything that Tess could point out as being _off_, but… Tess couldn't shake the feeling.

Still, though; this trip had already done more to solidify her budding relationship with Max than any amount of meditating had been able to. After weeks of subtle mental prods, she'd only managed to half convince him that he'd been truly in love with her in their last lives, and even that hadn't really seemed to help.

Tess felt a small twinge of guilt at that, but she ignored it. He'd forgive her for the manipulation eventually, when he realized all she'd done for him. When he realized she'd given him back his family, and his home, and his throne…

Maybe then, he'd even love her back.

_If it wasn't for Liz Parker, he'd love me _now_._

Tess tried to calm him down. "Max –"

"What do I know about war and peace and… and _politics_. I'm gonna blow it." As Max went on, his voice got louder and louder. Surprised as she was by this sudden jump from nervous to semi-hysterical, Tess was still aware enough of their surroundings to realize he was beginning to draw attention. "I'm gonna sit down at this meeting, I'm gonna meet these people, they're going to look at me and they're going to see this, this _kid _from New Mexico who hasn't got a clue – and is this car slowing down? Are we slowing down?"

"Relax!" Tess grabbed his arm and stood on her toes, trying to look him in the eye. When she finally did, he seemed to fractionally relax – the shape of his eyes easing from circular to merely round – and Tess smiled reassuringly. "Relax. We're almost there. "

The elevator door opened with a _ping_, and they walked out onto the top of the Empire State building.

For a moment it was almost like being home.

Standing here was like standing on her balcony in the palace. The details were hazy – it was mostly just the feeling she remembered – but she _did _remember. From there, she could see the whole Capital. It'd been on that balcony that Zan had formally asked her to marry him, where he'd told her he'd protect her… Where they'd shared their first kiss…

"This is where you belong, Max. Up here, with the world at your feet..." Tess's chin tilted upward in happy pride. She said, with more authority, "Like a King."

"I'm the King of the world." Max said with heavy sarcasm. He looked calmer now, but he obviously hadn't started _feeling _like a King yet. Like _himself_. Tess's smile gentled.

"Yes, you are." She turned back to look down over the city, noticing the dull grey of steal and cement and the husky brown of smog. It was so, so very different from the colors of their home world. "Just… not of this one."

But he'd be King again.

Kivar would bring them back as hostages, and the four of them would rise up and take back the throne. Their Protector had promised her that they still had supporters there – people of the Lesser Houses mostly, who were sympathetic enough to their cause to give them anything they'd need to fight.

They'd remake Antar the way it should be, and never have to think of Earth again.

_But will he think of Liz?_

* * *

><p>Somethin' was different.<p>

It wasn't obvious, but Lonnie had still noticed it pretty much immediately. It took her a few seconds to put her finger on it, but a lot of things were just a lil' _out of place._ The brown chair was turned about five degrees to the left of where they'd left it, the pillows had all been moved, but were still on the couch. Somebody'd been here.

An' they hadn't stolen anything.

That was actually the biggest sign that somethin' was rotten in the state of Denmark. Ain't nobody this far under the City that _wouldn't _get a hard on over the thought of nickin' a flat-screen TV or the pretty sizably collection of CD's. If anything, the place looked like it'd been real carefully _searched_…

There was only one person who knew both who they were an' where they lived.

The person Lonnie had told, so he could send the invite to the Summit.

Nik.

Rath didn't notice – obviously. Even before they'd died, he'd never been the brightest bulb in the friggin' chandelier. He had his moments were it almost seemed like he might have some potential, but then it'd disappear an' he'd fall back on brute-strength to get things done. It was occasionally useful, so Lonnie did her best to hide her disdain.

_Kivar is so much smarter. Kivar would know how to handle this._

Lonnie smirked and slunk across the room. She quickly scanned the shelf of CD's before grabbin' her favorite – they were all outta order but none of 'em were missin' – an' then settled on the couch an' started it up. She noticed another difference, then; the cushions weren't dusty. Oh, they weren't _clean_ – they never really had been, actually, but whoever had been through here had been here recently enough to knock whatever dust'd built up loose. A day ago, maybe? No more than that, though.

Lonnie looked up, catchin' Max an' lil' Tess starin' around with equal parts awe and disgust. Lonnie smirked. "Ain't quite Mayberry, is it?"

Max kept his expression carefully blank when he responded. "So this is where you were born?"

"Day one." Lonnie stretched out on the couch, smilin' up at the egg-like indents on the wall, still covered in crusty yellow strips of bio-matter. "Break outta the membranes, step outta the pods into the brave new world of the sewers."

She'd meant to say it seriously, but it'd come out kinda bitter an' mocking.

_They sent us here. Our _family_. Kivar would never've done this to me. Kivar loves me._

"And now you _live_ here?" Tess pointed at the floor, not so careful with her face as Max'd been.

_Oh, lil' girl. _Lonnie smirked. _Don't be pickin' fights. Rath already hates your guts_.

"Beats livin' in Brooklyn." Rath said with a deceptively mild voice. The hockey puck slammed into the wall just behind Tess's head, the only outward sign of Rath's true feelings.

Tess tensed an' quickly shuffled closer to Max. Rath, spottin' her fear, grinned an' set up another shot.

"So…" Tess started again. Lonnie bit back a pissed-off sigh.

_Don't this bitch ever shut up?_

"Why did your Protector bring your pods to New York? And why put you in the sewers?"

_"Hey! Get this straight; we're the originals – _they_ are the rejects." _

_"Heh. Uh, _gee_. They were carefully hidden away in Roswell and got custody of the granolith. You were dumped in the sewer. Figure _that_ out." _

Lonnie tensed as a clip of their earlier talk with Nik flashed through her mind. Across the room, she saw Rath duck his head an' grind his teeth, probably hearin' it too. _Bad fuckin' subject choice, blondie. Too fresh. _

"What is up with you an' all these questions about the shape-shifter?" Lonnie said, tryin' to deflect. If nothin' else, it would give Rath some time to chill the hell out. Still, she couldn't resist tossin' a bit of dismissal into the 'shape-shifter' part, an' apparently she hit a sore spot, 'cause Tess looked _pissed_.

"Our Protector raised me!" Tess snapped defensively. Then, voice goin' quiet, "His name was Nasato, and… we were very close."

Lonnie almost laughed.

That was the worst possible thing the shorter blonde coulda said if she'd wanted to get into Rath's good graces. Shape-shifter raised? _Very close_?

Lonnie knew how Rath would hear that: this preppy, uptight lil' bitch who looked _so _much like Ava – the kid-sister who'd stepped out on 'em not even a week ago – had apparently had what Rath'd always wanted; a father-figure who knew what she was goin' through an', more to the point, gave a shit. An' it was even worse that she'd said it like that, in that sad little voice, like she was lookin' for _sympathy_ or something…

"Yeah, an' how close was _that_?" Rath sneered, insinuation heavy on his tongue.

Max stepped up, all amped an' ready to play hero for –

_Wait. _

Lonnie frowned.

_How'd that bitch even know we had a Protector? _

None of them had said anythin' to her about it, obviously – that wasn't the kinda shit you talked about around Rath, if you didn't wanna fight. An' Tess'd said she hadn't known about the New York Four – or at least, she'd pretended to be as lost as those other hick's had when the subject had come up. An' if she'd just _suspected_ they'd had a Protector, she woulda asked first, right? Just to be sure?

… An' if she'd known there were two Protectors before all this Summit shit, she woulda known they had doubles out there somewhere.

So either Lonnie was bein' stupid paranoid, or lil' Tess was hidin' something.

Lonnie tilted her head and stared at her.

_So which is it, sweet sister?_ Lonnie wondered, mouth curlin' into a lil' smile. _Lyin' to your lover, now? Shame on you._

The part of Lonnie that was still payin' attention gave Max an' Rath a passive threat to get 'em to back down, an' when they turned to look at her, she pushed her questions about Tess aside. It didn't really matter – Tess had never been more than a minor piece in the game, an' whatever she was up to Lonnie would deal with it when it came up. They wouldn't be able to stop her. They wouldn't even know how.

Zan had been the only one who'd ever really known Lonnie, an' he was dead now.

An' thank god, 'cause without him around second guessin' her an' messin' everything up, there was nobody else to stand in her way.

_I'm goin' home…_

* * *

><p>Isabelle listened to the dial tone and tried to fight back the dark wave of rising confusion.<p>

What did he mean, the _first _time he'd confronted her? This _was _the first time he'd confronted her – and it's not like she'd forget a conversation like that! She'd spent weeks absolutely terrified that he'd find out about what she'd done in her last life; how she'd betrayed her him and fallen for the man who'd murdered their whole family…

Isabelle carefully set the phone down, replaying the conversation in her mind.

She'd wanted to tell him, but every time the idea went through her head she saw his face twisted in betrayal, in hurt and hatred… He was her only family in the whole world. She couldn't lose him like that.

She'd only told Lonnie because she'd thought Lonnie would understand how that felt.

But Lonnie…

_Lonnie looks just like me._

"Oh my God…" Isabelle whispered, eyes going wide in sudden understanding.

_That… that _bitch!

Isabelle grabbed the jeep keys off the side table and ran for the door. She got to Liz's house in record time, breaking all speed limits and narrowly dodging a yield-sign, fury building with every passing second.

Lonnie had told Max about Vilandra, and then pretended to be Isabelle when Max had come to confront her. Who knows what that bitch had told her brother to get him to leave? What hurtful accusations she'd thrown at him to make him _hate _her so much he was willing to leave the whole damn _planet _on a whim, without even really saying goodbye…

By the time Isabelle pulled into the parking lot of Liz's family restaurant, her fury had built into an all out _rage_. All she could think about was going in there and finding Ava, sitting her down at the counter and _getting answers_.

Even if she had to beat them out of her.

Isabelle pounded on the front door, only belatedly remembering Liz's parents. But they'd gone to Santa Fe for the weekend to celebrate their eighteenth anniversary, so she didn't actually have to worry about waking them up.

The neighbors, tho…

_Screw the neighbors._

"Ava!" Isabelle shouted, hitting the door with a little extra energy. Michael, who'd just peaked out through the window to the kitchen (where he'd probably been cleaning up after his shift), turned his head and said something unintelligible over his shoulder.

Through the glass, Isabelle saw Michael burst through the door to the back room, face filled with worry. Usually, she would've felt bad about giving him that expression, but Ava came through the door just behind him, and all of Isabelle's anger suddenly found a focus.

* * *

><p>Ava had been helpin' Mike clean up the kitchen when the racket started at the door. He glanced through the window, told her who it was, then hurried out to the main room. Ava followed a bit slower, feelin' kinda nervous about meetin' a Lonnie-look-alike that was so obviously pissed off.<p>

"Isabelle, what –" Michael started as he opened the door, but she just pushed right past him. Ava's eyes widened, but before she could make a run for it Isabelle grabbed her arm and frog marched her over to the counter.

"Tonight, my brother called and told me something _very _interesting." Isabelle hissed, leanin' down to look Ava straight in the eye. "He told me he knew something horrible about me – something _Lonnie _told him. When I apologized, he said I should have done it the _first _time he confronted me. Only, as far as I'm aware, that _was _the first time he'd confronted me.

"So, after my brother hung up on me, I got to thinking. How could my brother have had a conversation with me, without me being there?" Isabelle chirped. "Huh?"

The look Isabelle was givin' her was way too much like Lonnie. Her eyes – like Lonnie's – got darker when she was pissed, an' Lonnie's were almost always this same shade of black-brown.

That old, familiar fear built up in Ava, but this time it came with a matchin' fury.

_Lonnie killed Zan lookin' like that. You wanna kill me now? Fine._

_Fuck you._

Ava turned her face away an' ignored the question.

Isabelle slammed her hand down on the counter an' shouted, "Why did Lonnie impersonate me!"

"I don't know." Ava said clearly, shruggin' her shoulders and still not lookin' back at Isabelle.

"Why don't I believe you?" Isabelle hissed, an' Ava finally looked at her again. She met the bigger blonde's gaze, feelin' oddly giddy at the defiance.

"That's your problem." Ava responded with a lil' cheek. Michael, standing behind her, lifted a palm; the condiments on the shelf to Ava's right exploded.

But Ava didn't so much as flinch.

_You two cornball's ain't half so scary as Lonnie an' Rath._

"_Don't_." Michael growled. "Piss us off."

Ava almost snorted.

"Fine." Isabelle grabbed Ava's arm an' forced her back around to face the bigger blonde. "We'll do this the hard way."

An' suddenly, like the light over the horizon at sunrise, Liz was there.

"Okay. Okay, okay. Wait, wait, wait… It's okay." Liz said quickly, a forced smile forming on her face. She grabbed Ava's arm and gently pulled her away from the other two. And even though, really, Liz had no actual place in the chain of command, Isabelle Michael didn't even try to stop her. "Come on Ava."

"Alright. Look, Ava," Liz finally started, voice just a little unsteady from the tension. "You _told _me that you had a secret that you couldn't tell anyone. But, um… If Max is in danger, you _have _to tell us. You lost Zan. _Please _don't let me lose Max."

Liz was gettin' teary now, voice shakin' as the need to cry built up. Ava felt all her defiance melt in the face of Liz's naked fear. "I love him, you know? And I love him just as much as you did Zan, and… _please_, Ava, don't let me lose him, _please_..."

Ava's mind slipped back again, and she was watchin' them shove him into the street – watchin' them kill the man she loved. Screamin' without making a sound, watchin' her world suddenly crumble to dust an' blow away.

_You love Max more_, she thought. _Because you _won't _let him die the way I let Zan die… _

_Why couldn't I have been like you?_

"Lonnie an' Rath," Ava said, an' it wasn't so much a weight liftin' from her shoulders as it was like suddenly seein' clearly after spendin' years inside a fog. She wasn't gonna keep silent anymore – she wasn't gonna _pretend_ like it hadn't happened.

There was nothing they could do that would hurt her more than they already had.

"… killed Zan." Ava finished. "An' they're probably gonna kill Max."

Liz stared, face twistin' in horrified disbelief, tears still buildin' in her eyes…

There was a long, awkward silence as the implications of what Ava said sunk in for everybody. Isabelle, suddenly lookin' a lot less pissed an' a lot more panicked, started pacin' by the counter. "We've got to find a way to warn Max!"

"He's in the Summit right now." Michael muttered, sittin' on a table close to her.

Isabelle froze an' turned to face Ava, some shadow of her earlier rage returnin' to her face. She snapped, "Where's the Summit being held?"

Ava didn't feel like fighting anymore, so she shrugged. "Some buildin' downtown."

"You've gotta do better than that." Michael growled.

"I don't know anything more." Ava said, holdin' up one hand in surrender.

Liz perked up outta nowhere. "Hey, Isabelle. Um… Can't you dream-walk Max? Put a warning in his head? You've done it before – you know, when he was in the White Room?"

"That was different." Isabelle muttered uncomfortably as everyone's eyes turned her way. "He was _drugged_. He was only a few miles away – he's halfway across the country now."

"I think we're out of alternatives." Michael said softly, an' after a long moment of lookin' at him, she sighed an' reluctantly nodded.

_He brought me back_.

The other three kept talkin', but Ava found herself slippin' deeper an' deeper into her own thoughts. It was Liz's voice she heard, echoing what she'd said just a few days before when they'd sat together at the counter after Ava's nightmare…

_I got shot. He brought me back_.

Another followed close after, from a memory much older an' much darker than the first. The voice this time was younger, rougher, an' filled with quiet energy.

"_Sometimes, I swear I could feel 'im, you know?" Jenny whispered, legs swingin' where they hung off the roof. Ava was sittin' a ways back, too scared to get closer to the edge, where Jenny dangled her feet over a hundred foot drop without a care in the world._ "_Like some part of me is inside his body with him, sharin' his heartbeat. I hate it, but I love it too, in some freaky way." _

If Jenny could feel Zan like that even though she was human, just 'cause she'd been healed, maybe…

_Jenny grinned. "Someday I'm gonna go back, Ava. I'm gonna go back, an' mom'll be sorry she ever let him touch me."_

Ava shook her head and walked to the other side of the diner.

Jenny'd always hated her mom, but after what happened with her step-father, it'd seemed to get so much worse. Sometimes late at night, she'd ask Ava to leave with her, to go to her mother's place and finish what they'd started that day Michael killed her step-father.

_"You did it before, right?" She'd whisper, lookin' so hopeful it almost made Ava sick. "It would be just like that. It wouldn't be so hard, would it?" _

_"She's your mom." Ava whispered back, squeezin' her threadbare pillow. _

_Jenny's face went kinda dark, but the grin – that seemingly permanent, Jenny-grin – barely weakened. "So? She's no better than Carlos was."_

A sharp _thud _echoed through the silent diner. Ava whirled.

"Damn it!" Isabelle cursed, running both hands through her long hair. Ava realized she'd been pacin', lost in thought, for the better part of half-an-hour. "It's not working. I can't reach him…"

Michael walked up to her an' put a gentle hand along her back. Had the situation been different, Ava woulda probably been surprised – the way she always was when a guy with Rath's face was gentle, or a girl with Lonnie's face was scared. But right now she was too focused to care.

Her mind was fightin' with an idea…

_"I felt what he felt," Liz murmured happily later on that same night. "It was like… It was like I could feel how he saw me, and how I made him feel and… It was just this totally magical thing, you know?" _

It could work. That hadn't been the only time Liz had mentioned her 'bond' with Max, although she'd always tried to act like it was strictly in the past tense.

But Jenny had only known how to find Zan that day _because_ of the bond.

"Yeah, but you gotta try again." Michael insisted.

"Won't do any good." Isabelle immediately rebutted. "He's not _hearing _me…"

_But he might hear _Liz_… _

"Okay, so…" Liz walked up, that nervous smile formin' yet again. "Um. What's plan b?"

Isabelle sighed, fingers diggin' into her hair an' eyes slidin' closed. "There isn't one."

_Yes, there is_. Ava's conscience whispered. _Yes there is, yes there is, yes there is… _

The image of lil' Jenny laughin' with blood bubblin' at the corners of her mouth formed in Ava's mind. _I swear I could feel him_, Jenny'd said, back when Ava could've sworn she was her friend.

What if Liz was just as bad, but better at hidin' it?

_"You must've loved him a lot." Liz muttered, looking wistful. _

Ava thought back to the way Liz'd stepped in when Isabelle and Michael had started in on her. She couldn't be evil – she couldn't be…

_She's my friend…_

Ava bit her lip an' tapped the table, rememberin' the way Liz had begged her to save Max. Begged an' cried and talked about love; things Jenny had never – not even before the beating – been able to do. Liz was _different_…

Finally givin' up the fight, Ava took a deep breath, reached over an' snatched a chair off a nearby table. Havin' made the decision, she felt her doubts disappear. This could work. It _had _to…

_I can't stand by and let him die again._

"Liz can do it."

* * *

><p>Tess struggled as Rath dragged her down the street and shoved her into the subway entrance. She tried to scream, but no sound escaped the prison of his hand wrapped around her mouth. They pulled her into the dark…<p>

They'd tried to kill Max, but they'd failed. She'd seen that for herself, forced her head sideways despite the power of Rath's hold to see what was happening. The grate had fallen, but Zan – instead of walking forward, had turned and walked to the side – to safety. She didn't know if Rath or Lonnie had noticed, but they'd seemed to be in quite the hurry to get out of there.

Tess pushed as much of the fear aside as she was able, and weighed her options.

Her Protector had prepared her for this. If at all possible, she had to keep her abilities a secret – if they knew what she could do, how much more advanced she was, they would be afraid. It'd been hard enough convincing them that the incident in the school where she'd fried the Skins had been accidental – another such blatant occurrence might cost her their trust.

_But Max wasn't here to see. _

Tess tried to think of other options, but the further they dragged her through the tunnels the less of an alternative she could see. There was really only two reasons they'd want to hold onto her at this point; if they knew Max was alive, they needed a hostage, and if they didn't… then they wanted info on the Granolith.

And she couldn't let them have it.

_The Granolith is _our _way home, _she snarled silently. _Mine and Max's. _Not _yours!_

Almost as soon as that thought crossed her mind, they stopped. Rath threw her into something hard, and Tess yelped as the abrasive texture of brick cut into her shoulder blade.

"Yo, what're we gonna do with her?" Rath rasped, sounding vaguely winded.

Tess looked up at Lonnie, who was still staring down at her with those crazy, hate-filled eyes. "We're gonna need her when Max shows up. A lil' added _incentive_."

_Oh, good_. Tess sighed in relief. _A hostage, then. That's fine. Might even be good for me an' Max, in the long run…_

"What?" Rath scoffed. "Max's _dead_. Arrogant lil' –"

"No, he ain't." Lonnie cut him off, never lookin' away from Tess. "He dodged it. Retard turned an' walked into the _street_ for no damn reason."

Rath went quiet for a second, then seemed to visibly puff up. "I can take 'im."

"Yeah, you can," Lonnie muttered, her perpetual smirk going just a little bit darker. "But first, I think the lil' miss here might have somethin' to tell us."

"I have _nothing_ to say to you." Tess snarled, before Rath backhanded her across the face.

Lonnie leaned down an' grinned at her. "Where's the Granolith?"

Tess swallowed. "How should I know?"

"Oh, I think you know." Lonnie paused, then pushed herself to her feet and took a few steps away. "An' if you know what's good for you, you'll tell us right now. 'Cause I promise the alternative will be somethin' you really won't like."

Tess glared and kept silent.

Lonnie's frown waned, and after a second she took a few quick steps toward Tess and knelt again. Her expression was _murderous_.

"So be it."

Lonnie's hand latched onto Tess's hair, and Tess immediately felt the press of Lonnie's mind against her own. Of everyone in the Morning House, Vilandra had been the only one with any true ability in the mental arts – a throwback to her mother's House, probably. But Ava wasn't just _able_.

She was a prodigy.

Tess slammed back against the assault, reversing the force and digging into Lonnie's mind both mentally and physically. The contact was so brief that she only got a taste of Lonnie's mind and a short glimpse of Lonnie's shocked expression before the girl went flying back across the room. Rath gaped for a second before his mouth pulled into a snarl and he charged…

Tess remembered the hockey puck, and the constant comments, and the way he'd sneered when she'd told him she was close to Nasato.

Rath was less than a step away when he suddenly screamed.

He fell to his knees, clawing at the back of his head and sobbing. Tess held onto the focus, despite how draining it was, despite how much it _hurt _to force this much damage on a person so quickly. It'd been a lot easier on the Skins, because they'd had no mental defenses – other than Nik, who she'd warned off in the brief moments before the other Four woke from her wipe. But this… this felt like trying to push a car uphill all by herself.

Tess grit her teeth and put one final burst of energy into it.

As quickly as he started, he stopped, going suddenly silent and still. He started to tilt backwards – and as his body gained momentum he fell quicker and quicker, glazed eyes staring at nothing…

He hit the ground with an explosion of dust.

When it cleared, there was nothing left of him.

Lonnie was staring at her from across the room, still sitting where she'd fallen. For the first time since she'd met the older girl, Lonnie looked truly afraid.

Of _her_.

It was… a surprisingly pleasant feeling.

Tess pushed herself to her feet and walking slowly toward the older girl.

Lonnie gaped for a second, looking down at the ashes scattered on the floor. "How did you –"

"You were always a prima-donna, _Vilandra_." Tess hissed. "Your only real skills were making clothes and sneaking into people's dreams. What made you think you could ever beat _me _in a fight?"

Lonnie scowled, obviously trying to get over the fear. "This ain't over."

"Oh, yes, it is." Tess hissed, leaning down to look at Lonnie the same way Lonnie'd looked at her a moment before. Tess remembered the twisted mess she'd felt within Lonnie's mind, the acrid flavor of it, and she smiled.

"Because I have my own deal with Kivar." Tess declared, and she watched Lonnie's scowl grow uncertain and almost _hurt._ "And I'm sure he'll be very… _displeased _with you if you mess it up."

"Bullshit." Lonnie finally muttered, and Tess rolled her eyes.

"I'm to bring him the Granolith, and Zan's son." Tess didn't mention what the Granolith could do, because she wasn't really sure of how Lonnie would react. If there was a means to get home in Roswell, would she use it even despite Kivar's order not to?

What was more important – returning to the man she was forced to love, or obeying him?

Lonnie glared, and more than ever before Tess was struck by the insane rage lurking underneath the older girl's eyes. But Lonnie stood up and left without another word, and Tess let herself start to relax.

Distantly, Tess heard footsteps and a familiar voice calling her name. The exhaustion of the day caught up with her, and Tess picked a spot directly under a beam of light and sat down heavily to wait for Max.

_For Zan, my King…_

* * *

><p>As Larek hailed a taxi, he wondered at the changes some fifty years could bring.<p>

Once upon a time, he and Zan had been of age. They'd attended all the same functions as children, being the Heir Apparent to their respective worlds. In fact, they'd seen each other often enough that, after a while, they'd been almost like family.

And then Zan's father died, and something changed in the man. All of a sudden, he'd seemed driven to remake millennia of tradition – to pull down every old injustice and expose every House secret. It seemed that overnight he'd earned the hatred of half the Higher Houses and the undying loyalty of the entire lower caste. He'd become a hero known and quietly celebrated over each of the five worlds, and the other monarchs were all being pressured to make a stance, one way or the other.

Larek had gone to him in confidence and warned him where such dangerous policies could lead, but Zan hadn't listened. He'd blundered forward, eyes fixed on some distant goal that Larek could neither see nor even begin to understand.

One bleak morning, long after the two had lost touch, news reached Larek that Zan's whole family had been murdered in the night. His throne had been commandeered by _Kivar_ of all people; a bitter, unimpressive man whose only talent lay in his frightening empathic ability. In fact, Kivar had proven his inability to strategize through his treatment of the royal House; had he kept them as hostages, he may well have avoided civil war, but instead he'd martyred the people's hero, and they'd risen up against him with a terrible unity the likes of which the Alliance hadn't seen in millennia.

Of course, eventually the news had leaked somehow that Zan was set to be reborn on a distant planet, safely beyond Kivar's reach. It'd taken almost four decades before they'd determined that that planet was Earth, and the rich and militant had begun flocking there by the dozen.

And now, Zan was young again – although aging faster than any Antarian, due to his human blood. He hadn't known Larek's name when it'd been said; he hadn't recognized _any _of the monarchs' names. He'd even called himself 'Max Evans'.

The monarchs of the other planets hated him, of course. If they followed his lead, they'd alienate their most powerful supporters, but if they disregarded him, they'd earn the hatred and disdain of the masses. For generations, their forefathers had mimicked the rule of _their_ forefathers, centuries floating past without change. And then Zan had been crowned.

Larek had almost hoped that Zan wouldn't come to the Summit. Oh, yes – the other planets were in desperate need of some kind of alliance or cease-fire, but the exiled King really wasn't in a position to provide it for them, and they all knew it. The nobility had just wanted some kind of story to bring back to their people to quell the aggression, some tale of Zan's weakness or thoughtless disregard to their suffering. The nobility who sided with Kivar needed it to get the people off their backs, and the nobility who (outwardly) sided with Zan needed a reason to _stop_.

When Max had stood up and refused to give into Nikolas's demands, they'd likely found one.

Not that it would help them overmuch, of course. The people would never believe that it'd happened the way they said. After Zan, they'd lost all faith in their leaders, and likely the story of this meeting would evolve into yet another heroic tale about the struggle between Zan and the enemies of the people.

Had Zan given in, he would likely have spent only a short sojourn as a figurehead for Kivar. Eventually, after Kivar had managed to do whatever it was he needed Zan to do, the King would end up dying in some suspiciously inconspicuous manner. The war would end, and Kivar would have won.

But if he'd just offered Kivar sole possession of the Granolith…

Larek had never understood the obsession the Antarian Houses had with the damn thing. It was a useless relic of a forgotten past, and it should've been stuffed in a museum a long time ago. But whatever beauty they saw in that thing was obviously shared by the people, who'd built up an entire mythology surrounding it. If Kivar thought he'd make headway with the masses by possessing it, he'd likely be willing to give up quite a bit.

Had Zan been willing to sacrifice that…

… Had Zan been willing to sacrifice that, he never would've died in the first place.

Larek sighed.

As he'd told Zan, it really did sadden him to watch history repeat itself.

The cab pulled up at the airport, and Larek paid the driver and stepped out. He'd have to think about all this later; he'd spent too much time in this body, and right now he had to focus on getting his Vessel home.

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: I'm still stuck where I was stuck before, but I'm working on it. If you want to help, all you have to do to motivate me is to send a nice, long review. (:


	16. Chapter 14: Renewel

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Okay. So, yeah – this is crazy short. And I apologize for that. But despite that apology, I'm also going to warn you that the next several chapters probably won't be any longer. I'm getting to a point in this story where everything the reader needs to know is kind of spread out and randomly ordered, so until I get closer to the end, chapters will be short.

Also, very sorry for the wait. I just really haven't felt up to writing.

* * *

><p>Zan smirked with suppressed laughter, and for a minute Beth looked like she might hit him. But then she let out a long breath and the frustration melted into a weirdly petulant pout. He didn't know how to respond to that expression – it made her look… different. But then, almost against his control, he found his eyes wandering back up to her head.<p>

He snorted.

"Oh, come on!" She complained, hands going up to flutter around her hair. In between the familiar chocolate brown sections, there were now streaks of bright pink – and all of it had been chopped into a surprisingly professional pixie-cut. The hair was supposed to match her new wardrobe, which was somewhere between biker-chick and punk. "It can't be that bad."

After staring for a little while, Zan shrugged. "It ain't… _bad_, exactly, just… well, it's not really your style, y'know?"

Beth glared. The expression was a lot more familiar to the teenage alien, sadly enough. "Oh? And what exactly _is _my style?"

Zan shrugged again and tilted his head a bit to one side. He looked her up and down, his earlier smirk now barely flirting with the corners of his mouth. "I'd go with Chihuahua."

Beth gaped. "I… _What_?" Zan grinned.

"It's this thing we…" he paused, jaw clenching as if to physically force the rest of that sentence not to escape. Grin now more than a little brittle, he continued. "This thing _I_ used to do, where you pick a dog that matches somebodies personality."

Beth scowled. "Why am I a Chihuahua?"

"Y'know," Zan's smile turned a little bit more genuine. Beth felt a bit of her annoyance melt away. "Small, makes a lot of noise?"

"Oh, ha ha." Beth huffed. "What does that make you, a sheep dog?"

"… You're really focused on this hair shit, aincha Beth?"

"I'm _not_ –" Beth growled. Then – as she realized just how ridiculous this whole conversation was becoming – she forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. Moving rigidly, she reached over and swiped the plastic bag from the foot of her bed, tossing it to Zan in the same swift movement. "Look. Just go and change _something_, okay?"

Zan smirked, but pulled himself up and made his way to the bathroom without any further argument. Just before he closed the door behind him, she snapped, "And I am _not_ a Chihuahua!"

The rusty bathroom hinges squealed just loud enough to cover up the snickers.

* * *

><p>Zan pulled open the bag and found a whole array of grooming supplies. There were several dyes (only blonde, red, and blue now that the pink was gone), hair accessories, gel, scissors and an electric razor in there, and Zan couldn't help but wonder if maybe he really had pissed her off for her to have thrown a bag full of sharp shit at him. But the plastic was woven together in strands – or at least, made to look like it had been – and was actually pretty sturdy, so he figured she probably hadn't meant anything by it.<p>

… Probably.

Zan shook his head and started pulling things out, mentally going over Beth's little speech from earlier, to remind himself why all this stuff was necessary. _Not everybody will remember us, Zan. But some people will. _

He really didn't get what she was so worried about; they'd been driving for almost three days now, and they'd ditched their car only a few hours into the first one. After that, they'd grabbed a train, then a taxi, then a ferry, then another taxi, and then they'd rented a car in some podunk town in Virginia. Zan had never met anybody as paranoid about hiding as Beth was – and considering where he grew up, that was really saying something…

Zan pulled out the blue dye and considered it, but the color reminded him way too much of Ava. Actually, so did the blonde – and now that he thought about it, Rath had been way into the color red for a while. He shoved the dyes back into the bag and pulled out a razor.

According to Beth, this was the final step in their escape. After this, they could slow down a bit – start taking in the sites, exploring the scenery, and training until his arms fell off. Or at least, that's what Beth seemed to think "slowing down" meant. Zan wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't be happier to just keep running.

He messed with the razor, deftly clipping on one of the shorter guards. Several different potential hairstyles started forming in his mind. He considered a Mohawk and discarded the idea instantly. He'd seen a guy shave all but two circles of hair on either side of his head and then gel them into horns, once, which was kinda cool. Zan grinned and pictured how Beth would react to that.

_You get to be anyone you want to be._

Zan's grin faded.

Hazel eyes slid toward the mirror, locking on his reflection. He hadn't actually bothered to style his hair since before –… well, _before_, and the shower he had that morning had gotten rid of any natural grease that might've held his hair up in the usual spikes. Now it hung down covering his forehead and getting in the way of his eyes, which – along with the thin mustache that'd grown in over his upper lip and the inch of growth along his jaw – left very little exposed skin.

He looked… _hairy_.

He used to pride himself on looking defiant. If people were going to treat him like trash, then he was going to be _dangerous _trash. He'd written aggression into his expression and the way he held himself, into his voice and eyes and body movement. It'd seemed so important that all those unfriendly faces should look at him and know he wasn't afraid.

But in the end, it hadn't been the strangers he'd needed to worry about. It hadn't been one of those snobby assholes on the street who'd ruined his life. He'd known the person that tried to kill him, and obviously all of that time he'd spent building an image to ward off danger hadn't done a god damn thing to protect him.

_You've got to create a whole new face._

After another second of staring at the mirror, Zan absently pulled his hair back into a ponytail and plugged in the razor. He flicked it on, filling the little bathroom with the hum of the blade's vibration, and then froze. He had no idea what he wanted to do.

Zan's mind went back to all the time he used to spend maintaining the band of hair that spanned from one temple, over his chin, and back up to the other. Rath had made fun of him for it, which Zan had always thought was pretty ironic, considering Rath was the one that went into a full on panic attack when they ran out of hair gel. Even Lonnie had joked about it; she'd once told Zan that he spent more time in the bathroom than she did.

Zan's grip on the razor had tightened so much his hand began to shake. Slowly, he pushed the buzzing blade up underneath the hair growing on his chin.

Just like everything else in his life, the face in the mirror held way too many memories.

It was passed time for a change.

* * *

><p>Half an hour passed before Zan came back out of the bathroom. Liz had actually begun to worry; before the shaver clicked on, almost fifteen minutes had passed without a single sound coming through the bathroom door. She'd even started wondering if he'd had a change of heart and escaped through the window or something.<p>

When he finally did come out, Liz had to struggle to keep from gaping. He'd shaved off the scraggly goatee and the unkempt beard, leaving only the faintest shadow of facial hair along his jaw and upper lip. Instead of gelling his hair up the way he used to, he'd pulled it back into a ponytail. His hair wasn't really long enough for it, so some pieces at the nape of his neck and along his hair line had slipped loose, but overall it worked.

Liz was shocked by how different he looked; she'd honestly expected him to come back out looking exactly as he had a month and a half ago, when she'd seen him at the pizzeria. Ava had always talked about how anal he was when it came to his hair, and Liz'd had just assumed it would take hours of arguing to convince him to change anything at all. She'd never actually expected him to change everything all on his own.

But despite the shock value… it was a good look for him. A very good look.

Liz smiled. "I like it."

He'd been avoiding her eyes, but at Liz's comment he turned to stare at her, eyebrows inching upward. Obviously, he'd been expecting to be teased, but when the honesty in her smile registered his ears turned adorably pink. After a second he cleared his throat and looked away, completely unsure of how to respond to her appreciation.

Unseen, Liz's smile turned wicked.

"Now, about your clothes…"

Zan spun toward her again, eyes gone wide. "No way in hell, Beth. _No_."

Liz sighed, hiding a gleeful smirk.

"I was thinking something cheerful. Like khaki! You like khaki, don't you?"

* * *

><p>For the first time in this life, Lonnie cried.<p>

She was _supposed_ to be going home.

She was supposed to be _going home!_

And instead, here she was yet again, in this disgusting sewer, laying underneath the crusted remnants of their incubation pods. The only thing that had changed – the _only thing_ – was that now she was truly alone.

No matter how much she'd hated Rath and Zan and even, sometimes, Ava, their very presence had given her hope. Zan was an arrogant, selfish little bastard, but he was also an amazingly useful political piece. The Monarchs would never have bothered inviting them to the Summit without Zan, and now if they decided for any reason to reach out again, Zan was a little too _dead_ to catch their interest. The next time they came looking for him, they'd find his face in Roswell with that prissy bitch Isabelle and Ava's crazy fucking double.

And Rath might've been an idiot and a total waste of space, but he'd been devoted to her. Now even that small advantage was reduced to a pile of ash in the tunnels, and Lonnie was left with nothing.

None of that was the worst part, though. The worst part was that Kivar – the man she adored, the man she _worshipped _with every fiber of her being – had never expected her to pull this off.

He'd already made plans to get the Granolith.

And apparently, they had nothing to do with her.

Lonnie sobbed, and with one violent sweep of her hand, crumbling mortar and brick exploded from the tunnel wall. The pieces flew through the air and were caught up in the pull of her mind, orbiting the couch where she lay like a thousand broken worlds.

She wanted to go home! She wanted to be at Kivar's side once again. She wanted to hear his voice, to feel him touch her skin, to kiss him the way she used to… She couldn't feel him, anymore – he was too far away now, and every moment that passed with her trapped on this pathetic, back-water little planet only added to that distance.

And now the Summit, the Grannolith – her best possible route home – was leaving the planet without her. On Kivar's orders.

Lonnie tangled her fingers in her hair and screamed.

The debris floating in an orb around her stilled, and then shot outwards in all directions. Rock ricocheted off broken walls, tearing through the cavernous room and leaving havoc in their wake. Fabric ripped, stone crumbled, and the delicate inner workings of their prized flat screen television collapsed in on themselves, spitting sparks.

The noise was horrible.

Lonnie's mental storm eased as her grief exhausted itself in the chaos. The tension slid from her shoulders and the rubble settled, as if the room was feeling her resignation. She took a deep breath and forced back the hopelessness, the hurt, and the heart-rending feeling of betrayal.

It couldn't be what she thought.

Kivar would never hurt her like that.

_Kivar loves me. _

Lonnie sighed and gave a solid tug on one handful of hair. She must've misunderstood. There had to be some reason he'd ordered this – he'd have some kind of back-up plan for her. He wanted her with him more than anything. He just… had some secret plan she didn't know about. It was the only explanation.

After a long moment spent taking deep, calming breaths, Lonnie pushed herself to her feet. She had to figure out what was going on. She had to find some way to contact him – or his people, at least – so that she could prepare herself to play whatever part he'd set for her.

So what if Zan and Rath were dead? She'd wished for that very thing a thousand times before. And Ava, wherever she was, was no great loss; she'd always been more of a hindrance than a help, anyways. Even without them, Lonnie wasn't alone.

She'd never be alone.

_Kivar_.

* * *

><p>Long after Zan fell asleep on the day after they left New York, Liz sat awake in the dark, twisting her new ID between her fingers.<p>

She'd had Zan change the picture to match her new hair-cut, so her picture was a grinning little figure with pink stripped short hair and a worn brown leather jacket. Officially, her new name was Eliza Bennet, which she'd chosen so she could still go by 'Liz'. Not that that was much use now, seeing as Zan still insisted on calling her 'Beth'.

Liz didn't really mind it; in some ways, Beth was more her name now than Liz. Liz was a seventeen year old high-school student in Roswell who still hadn't learned to lie, or curse, or hit someone just because she was angry. Beth, on the other hand, was a woman who was actually rather good at every one of those things. And Beth was a woman who didn't exist.

Ghost of Christmas' yet to come.

She smiled sourly, bitterly amused by the parallel.

_What kind of person will I be?_

The question formed at random in her mind. She'd asked herself that question a lot since she decided to save Alex (_and god, had it really only been a week before?_). His death had been a horrible, heartbreaking event, but the fact remained that it had come to define her. The weeks after, when she'd put everything she had into finding out the truth about what really happened… that's when she'd found out what she was really made of. It's when she'd learned that she could be stronger than she'd ever imagined and that Max, despite all of his amazing abilities, was still only human.

Before Alex died, Liz Parker had been a dreamer, pure and simple. She loved romance stories and big gestures and happy endings, and no matter how bad things got some part of her always felt sure she'd get her ride into the sunset, someday. In fact, some deeply embarrassing side of her psyche had actually envisioned Max and herself in the place of Romeo and Juliet.

After Alex… well, Liz Parker had found the dark side of the fairy tale.

More importantly, she'd found the dark side of herself.

Despite how hard it'd been to swallow at first, that dark side of her had become her biggest strength. It had carried her through her most desperate battles and her most painful disappointments. So even though a part of her missed the gentle innocence it had replaced, she couldn't imagine the person she'd be without it.

And what about her and Max? Before Alex died, she'd thought he was literally _perfect_. She couldn't imagine him ever hurting her (intentionally or not), and the idea of him making a big, irrevocable mistake had been almost laughable. But when Liz had laid out her suspicions and had Max shoot her down – and then taking comfort in _Tess_, of all people…

The Liz she'd once been had never thought she could survive that kind of heartbreak. But she _had_ survived. Hell, it hadn't even slowed her down. And for the first time since before she'd fallen for him, Liz had been able to live a life almost completely devoid of Max.

It'd hurt, and it'd shattered a lot of her illusions about love, but it'd helped her to see Max as a genuine person – not a saint or an angel or a god. And eventually, it'd helped her to understand that she still loved him, imperfections and all, and that he loved even the worst parts of her.

Because of the hard times they'd been through, she had come to understand him. To know him, as almost no one else could. Would their relationship ever have been as deep – as enduring – without that? Would she ever have been so strong, without having suffered?

She didn't know, and that bothered her more than anything else.

_She's not me_.

Liz flipped the ID between her fingers, knowing it was true. This new Liz wasn't her any more than she was Eliza Bennet.

The little plastic card dropped, falling lightly against the hotel bedspread, and Liz sighed. If she did her job right, the Liz who'd lived through the war, who'd watched her family die and who'd built a time machine to change it all, would never exist. She'd just be a memory – a phantom image that lived and walked the Earth for a few short months, never having been born, never really dying.

November was almost over.

She had four months left to save the world_._

_ Four months, and I cease to exist…_

Liz heard Zan tossing and whimpering from the other bed, a clear sign that tonight's bad dreams were beginning to take hold of his mind. She turned to stare at his silhouette, and wondered if four months would really be enough...

* * *

><p><em>On the very edge of perception, her prey was moving. Every day he went farther and farther, running without knowing just what was on his trail. But no matter how fast he ran or how far he reached, he'd never escape her. She'd always find him, eventually. <em>

_ And now… _

_ She smiled. _

_ He was quick, but she was quicker. _

_ She was gaining._

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: Sorry if they seemed ooc in this chapter. You have no idea how many times I rewrote this, and I'm still not satisfied with it. Unfortunately, I left you guys waiting way too long, so I just decided to post what I had.

Review.


	17. Chapter 15: Holiday

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Hey guys. Sorry for the ridiculous wait – I swear it wasn't intentional, but I'm not good with the last half of just about any story, and we're definitely there now. Still, I wanted to get _something _out before finals, so even though I'm not really happy with this, and there's some stuff in here you guys probably don't care about, I figured I'd post what I had now.

Also, for anybody who reads my other story… I will get another chapter out at some point after finals. That one's just harder to write because there's so much stuff to dig through in the series, and new episodes are still coming out. Still – I will do it, so don't worry.

Enjoy the chapter.

* * *

><p><em>Zan's face was throbbing. It wasn't even just his face – everything hurt, from the sting of scraped knuckles to the aching in his side that spoke of forming bruises. Rath was hanging off one shoulder, grinning like a crazy man, looking to be in even worse shape. <em>

_ Zan started to laugh. _

_ Lonnie pulled out of the shadows and rolled her eyes. Ava followed slightly after, looking pale and guarded. _

_ "You're both fuckin' idiots, ya know dat, right?" Lonnie said, one lip curling._

_ Rath snickered then hissed in pain. "Oh, damn. I think I broke somethin'…"_

_ Zan grinned, but kept his eyes on Lonnie. "Just havin' a good time, Lon." _

_ "What part of gettin' your _ass_ handed to you by a bunch of friggin' humans is s'posed to be da _good_ part, Zan?" She snapped back with a scowl. Zan smiled, in too good of a mood to let her control-freak personality bother him. _

_ "Whatev," he replied with a grin, just as Rath sniffed and sneered. _

_ "Don't be such a light-weight, Lon." _

_ Lonnie said something cutting back, but Zan just blocked them out. Okay, so yeah – Lonnie and Ava didn't get some of the stuff Zan and Rath enjoyed doing now and then. Stuff like getting in fights and hooking up with random girls (although that one was more Rath than Zan). And Zan could sympathize, considering he sure as shit didn't understand why Lonnie and Rath – who seemed to hate each other more often than not – were so quick to jump each others' bones. But the way Zan figured it, people were all fucked up in their own ways._

_And you just had to put up with that shit, when you were part of a family. _

_ Zan closed his eyes and let the feeling wash over him, more content than he'd been since..._

_ Since… _

_ He opened his eyes again, but they were someplace different now. The four of them were all alone, walking down a sidewalk by a dark street. A ball went bouncing out in front of the group, ricocheting in slow motion into the shadows of the street... _

_ Zan reached for it, caught it. Rolled it between his palms. The odd, bumpy skin of it softened, smoothed out, and grew warm. Zan watched the color lighten from lurid orange to a dull, familiar apricot. The shape lost its uniformity – the bottom lengthened, grew angles and softer curves, and from the top sprouted a swath of matted black hair. What Zan first thought were bubbles rise up from underneath the surface and split open, revealing bloodshot eyes that lolled listlessly to the side. A nose, broken and bleeding, spouted from the middle of the ball. Lips formed and opened up beneath it, gaping and ripped on one side. _

His_ eyes, _his_ nose, _his _mouth. _

_ Horror bubbled up through his throat like vomit. Only then did he realize that hot red was rolling down his forearms like syrup, thick and sticky. _

_He was holding his own severed head. _

_ "No," he muttered, wanting desperately for the ball to be just a ball again. "No. No, no, no, no, no – " _

_ "Why the long face, yo?" The head wondered, grinning through broken teeth above a bloody, matted goatee. "Dude, chill. You look like you seen a ghost." _

_Then there were hands on his back – so many hands, shoving him forward into the dark. Only it wasn't dark anymore. There were headlights in the distance, floating in the black. _

_ And they _screamed_…_

* * *

><p>Zan tried one last time to do what Beth had told him to, and cracked.<p>

"Yo, this is fuckin' stupid!"

Beth blinked up at him from where she was still sitting on the hotel room floor before she, too, shoved herself back up onto her feet. She cast an irritable glance at him from the corner of her eye and said with mock cheer: "Oh – don't hold back, Zan. Tell me how you really feel."

"This is ridiculous!" Zan snarled. He started pacing between the two hotel beds, desperately needing to get rid of some excess energy. "You keep talking about the _power of my mind_ or whatever, but if I wanted to learn to use the fuckin' force, I'd visit Yoda, aight?"

Briefly, Zan thought Yoda might've been the better option. Beth had had him doing these little _training sessions_ for almost a month, and as far as Zan could tell, every single one had been completely friggin' useless. She had him changing the colors of the carpet with a blindfold on, looking for people in other rooms, changing the channel on the muted TV behind him. And now she had him trying to turn on the bathroom sink with a door and some fifteen feet between them? _Seriously_?

Zan was starting to seriously wonder if she was just screwing with him.

From the corner of his eye, Zan saw Beth bite her lip and briefly form a fist with one hand. He wondered if she was going to hit him. He wished she would. At least he'd get _something _out of this bullshit training...

"It's a _mental _exorcize." Beth finally hissed, fist unclenching at her side. "It's about learning _control_. You've got a lot of raw power, Zan, but that isn't going to be enough anymore. If you want to be strong enough to beat the people coming after you, you're going to have to develop a little _skill_."

"Yo – I got skills!" Zan protested, old accent getting stronger the more defensive he got.

Beth snorted. "Not these skills, you don't."

"Oh, so turnin' on sinks is supposed to be my badass finishing move, huh?" Zan snapped, one arm swinging in the direction of the bathroom as he raged. One corner of his mouth turned in a toxic sneer. "You better watch out, mister big bad alien man, or I'll soak your ass with tap water."

Beth visibly bit back a snarling comeback, and Zan felt a brief flicker of satisfaction. It did nothing to ease his frustration, though – and neither did the steady thrum of another migraine just starting to build along the back of his skull. He'd been getting them a lot lately, although whether it was because of what happened in New York, his irritating training, or his increasingly disturbing nightmares, Zan really couldn't say.

_Why the long face, bro?_

Zan pushed the memory away with a scowl.

"Does Lonnie need to look at something to change it?" Beth finally responded, and the question was so unexpected that Zan visibly flinched. After a long moment of silence, Beth prompted, "Well?"

"No." Zan growled, teeth gritted. He hated to admit that Lonnie would be better than him at anything, even something as stupid as Beth's retarded little tasks. But he wouldn't lie to save face, either.

"That's because Vilandra, like Ava and your mother and Kivar and most other Antarians, has dominate _mental_ abilities." Zan blinked at her, nearly as thrown by Beth mentioning his mom as he had been by her bringing up Lonnie. "You, like your father and Rath, have dominate _physical_ abilities. Which is all well and good, and will give you a serious advantage in most fights, honestly. But if you don't develop some mental defenses, someday you're going to come across somebody that will get into your head before you can hit them hard enough to take them out, and then you'll lose. _Badly_."

"Fuck you." Zan snarled, too tired to really hear anything but Beth's voice telling him he was weak. That he would _fail_.

Beth gaped. After a second, her jaw snapped shut with an audible click. "Get out."

"W-what?"

Beth gestured at the door, face red and eyes furious. "I said get out. Take a walk, burn down some buildings – I don't care. But don't come back until you've calmed the fuck down."

Zan stared wide-eyed at Beth for a long minute. But then the rage came back, hot on the heels of his fatigue, and he stormed out of the hotel room, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

><p>"I love you." Damien whispered, and for one heartbreaking moment, Ava imagined he was Zan.<p>

But Zan had never looked at her the way the twenty-four year old artist was looking at her now. In fact, Ava had never seen Zan look half as entranced by anything as Damien did when he saw something that _inspired_ him, and that was one of the things she liked most about him. He was a passionate pacifist, extremely bad with money, and more interested in what he wanted things to be than in reality. On top of that, he was blonde, blue eyed, and completely covered in freckles.

He was nothing like Zan, which was the way Ava wanted it.

Ava had met Damien when she'd come to L.A. on the vague thought that their loser Protector was here. He was a pretty skeevy excuse for a parental figure, but with Zan dead and Lonnie and Rath who knows where, he was Ava's only remaining family. If she could find him, she thought he could maybe teach her how to protect herself – how to build a life where she'd be safe, and secure, and _free_.

But the only thing she knew about him was that he lived in L.A. She'd looked and looked, but she didn't know the first thing about tracking people down, and she wasn't getting anywhere. After a week living on the streets without the back-up of her family, Ava was seriously starting to worry that she'd have to actually start turning tricks to get by.

And then Damien had come up to her out of the blue, told her she was beautiful, and asked to take her picture. She'd blown him off, of course – if there was one thing Lonnie had taught her, it was how to recognize a bad pick-up line – but he'd just kept coming back. Every day he found her at that corner, and every day he told her she was beautiful and asked again if she'd let him take her picture.

She'd finally gotten tired of it and said yes, and to her surprise he'd done exactly as he'd said he would. He took her picture and left.

Ava didn't see him again for almost two weeks.

When he came back, he grinned and handed Ava a copy of some magazine. "Check page thirty-four," he said, and there she found the photo he'd taken.

She'd actually been a little shocked at what she saw. Somehow, he'd made her face looked less round and more heart-shaped, and he'd caught the light at just the right angle to make her blue eyes shine. And even though she'd been wearing dirty clothes and a matted blue wig, she saw what he'd meant when he'd told her she was beautiful.

Things sped up after that. He asked her out and brought her to a gallery, and then he took her to his loft. She'd thought he'd kick her out the next morning, but instead he made her breakfast and went on this long rant about how people don't appreciate the little things anymore. Despite all her nerves and discomfort, he'd seemed completely at home with her in his bed.

Eight days had passed, and she was still there. He said it was because she made him really _think _and _feel _things, which sounded like a load of crap to her but was apparently a big deal for him. Personally, Ava knew she'd have left already if she had anywhere else to go.

It wasn't that she didn't like Damien – she did. But Damien was human. And unlike Liz, he had no idea what she was, where she was from, or what dangers she faced just because she existed. If she was a good person, she'd have left him that morning and never come back. But Ava didn't want to go back to being alone.

Except…

There were moments she wasn't sure if she was. Alone, that is. There were times when Ava could almost feel something… feel someone, in the background of her mind. And even though she'd watched him die, that shadowy mental silhouette felt a lot like Zan.

Damien pushed himself off the bed, looking pissed. Belatedly, Ava realized she'd never said anything back after he'd told her he loved her. Ava sighed and closed her eyes.

"We talked about this, Day." She finally said, using her affectionate nick-name for him but still sounding as empty as she felt. "I'm not your type. You know I can't –"

"No, I _don't _know!" He barked, actually tearing up a little. It always made Ava a little uncomfortable when he did that; she wasn't used to being around people that cried as easily as he did. "That's the point! I don't know anything about you! I know I said mystery is a turn on or whatever, but this is ridiculous, Elle."

Ava winced. Luckily, her guilt at the fake name could easily work as a response to the accusing way he was confronting her with this…

"You said you didn't care about that." Ava muttered.

"Yeah, well -!" Damien sputtered, hands fluttering pointlessly in the air around his head. After a second he sighed, whole body deflating as he dropped backwards onto the bed. "I lied."

Ava looked over at him, eyes tracing the silhouette of his face from chin to forehead, lingering for a minute on the pouting lips and big, angelic eyes. When she'd first seen him, she'd thought he looked like a choir boy. Then she'd heard him cuss, realized he didn't mind sleeping with a sixteen – almost seventeen – year old, and found the stash of weed under his dresser. He was the son of a rich business man, and he was spoiled and naive and one of the biggest drama queens she'd ever met.

And he was also probably the best thing that had ever happened to her.

"I was married once." Ava blurted. Damien's head whipped toward her, blue eyes wide.

"But –" Damien gaped. "But you're sixteen."

Ava swallowed. How could she say this without explaining or lying to him again? "It… It was an arranged thing. It's a long story, really."

Damien stared, still looking shocked. For some random reason, Ava found that openness weirdly endearing. She smiled and rolled her head to look up at the ceiling. "Our parents set it up, but I didn't care, 'cause I was in love with him, y'know? He was brave and smart and really, really good to people. I never wanted anything as much as I wanted him to love me back.

"But things got… complicated. We ended up in New York; me, him, his sister and her… boyfriend. I knew by then that he was never gonna feel what I felt, and that was okay, because I didn't really believe I deserved it. And then…"

It'd been almost two months since Zan died. Two months to mourn the man that had held her heart as far back as she could remember.

Two months wasn't enough.

"They killed him." She cried, warm tears starting to stream down her face. She took a deep breath, and then she was gasping, lungs seizing painfully as the grief engulfed her. She remembered Zan defending her as a child, when Lonnie got really pushy. She remembered Zan holding her hand when she'd been too scared to climb out of the pod herself. She even remembered, just vaguely, the way she'd felt when she'd first seen him on Antar.

It was the only memory of her past life that she'd really tried to get back.

"They killed him!" She sobbed, and then Damien was there, arms wrapped around her as he whispered something random in her ear. Ava latched on to his shirt, burying her face into the heat of his chest and wishing for a moment that she couldn't remember any of it. She wished her life had started when she'd met Damien. She wished she'd never been anything but human.

"Shhh…" Damien whispered, rubbing circles in her back with one big palm. "It's okay, babe, you don't have to talk about it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Shhhh..."

Long after her tears were dried, he kept holding her and whispering that everything would be alright. She couldn't remember ever being held like this. Loved like this. But even though she knew it was wrong to let him comfort her when her heart still belonged to a dead man, she couldn't let him go.

* * *

><p>Nikolas read the report with steadily rising fear.<p>

_Kivar's coming to Earth._

He had six months – a couple years, tops – before this new alliance of Kivar's gave him the money he needed to suppress the Rebel forces on Antar. And the minute he had things settled there, he'd be making a new army of Husks to carry his legions to the Milky Way.

Nikolas crumpled the report in his fist and threw it at the wall. The soft impact between paper and plaster did nothing to ease the anger building in his head, and he couldn't think through the pressure of it. Teeth still locked firmly together, Nikolas screamed through the modified vocal simulator of the husk, and the sound was so primal and base that it relieved him more than he would have thought possible.

With that out of his system, Nikolas went suddenly boneless, and he would have fallen to his knees right then if there'd been room enough on the floor for that. Instead, Nikolas leaned against the wall and tried to figure out how the hell he was going to manage all of this.

Kivar's alliance with Hannar was a moot point; Kivar had been working for almost a decade to find a way to get around Emperor Larek's meddling, and if he'd gone public with the alliance, that meant he'd already succeeded. Still, it would take time to get things in motion, and Nik might get a little more leeway if the Rebel's managed their tactics well. But Kivar _would _win – that much was inevitable – and he would be coming.

Which was another thing Nikolas couldn't really understand. Of all the things for Kivar could do after beating the fighting back the rebellion on Antar, why the hell was he coming to _this _rock? There was nothing here except about six billion pretentious monkeys playing around with glorified slingshots. These primitives hadn't even discovered biotech yet – let alone figured out the subtleties of interplanetary travel!

So if Nikolas had to guess – which he really hated to do, honestly – he'd say Kivar wasn't coming to earth to harvest anything. And he obviously wasn't coming to open up peaceful negotiations; peace, in general, had never really held much appeal to the dictator. Which meant he must be coming here to colonize.

Nik's nose crinkled in disgust.

Colonize? _Here? _

Well, it wasn't for the sight-seeing – that's for damn sure. It must be for the extra space, or for the potential work force or –

_Land outside the Emperor's jurisdiction._

Nikolas froze, whole body going tense again. It made sense. The Articles of Alliance stated that the Emperor would have control over any Interplanetary actions _within the Whirlwind Galaxy_. Larek had absolutely no power over this planet, so if Kivar decided to colonize here… he could do whatever he wanted, and the Emperor couldn't say a word.

Suddenly, plans Nikolas had overheard years ago went from ridiculous to terrifying, and for the first time in more than half a century, Nikolas wondered if he'd been right to support Kivar.

_Too late now, though._

Kivar was coming, after all. Kivar had won.

And if Nik wanted to survive, he'd just have to play the hand he'd been dealt.

_First on the agenda; get rid of that bastard clone of Zan before Kivar has any chance to hear just how badly I've fucked up._

* * *

><p>Hours had passed since Zan disappeared, but Liz told herself again not to worry. She'd never handled arguments with the teenage alien very well, and the most recent one hadn't been any exception. But although the way she said it had been way too aggressive, telling Zan to leave and go cool off somewhere wasn't something she regretted. After almost a month in each other's constant company, they both needed a little time apart.<p>

Liz brought one hand up to rub her eyes again and sighed. She didn't blame him for being touchy; she knew how little sleep he'd been getting because the sounds he made at night woke kept her awake, too. She'd had a lot more experience living on caffeine than Zan did, but even knowing logically that his temper was understandable, her proverbial _fuse_ had been shortening daily.

Zan didn't really get the purpose of her training yet, and in this time Liz didn't have enough of a reputation to count on his wide-eyed respect to keep him following her instructions. It was a shitty situation, but there was nothing she could do about it except keep moving and make an effort to be understanding.

Liz fingered the circle in her pocket and sighed.

Another hour and a half passed before Zan slipped quietly back into the hotel room, and by then Liz was halfway through her second piece of pizza. She silently pushed the box in his direction, and after a long minute of staring with an odd expression on his face, Zan came and sat down on the other side of the bed.

The quiet mutter of the TV was the only thing that broke the silence as they ate. Liz kept her eyes on the show, though she had no idea what was going on, and tried to wait for Zan to take the initiative.

And after a while, he did.

"Sorry." He said quietly.

Liz glanced up. "What?"

"I said I'd do the training thing," Zan grumbled, but loud enough this time that he could be heard. "And I'm not the kinda loser who goes back on his word. So… Sorry. For being a dick, or whatever."

Liz snorted. "Yeah, well. I was being a bit of a bitch, too, so don't worry about it."

Another beat of silence passed, but this one was significantly more comfortable.

"Oh! By the way, I made something for you." Liz said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the gift she'd been working on for about a week – ever since she'd realized just what time of year it was. She tossed it to Zan, who caught it out of pure reflex. "Merry Christmas, Zan."

Zan blinked at her, obviously having forgotten to keep track of the date. After a second he pushed the shock aside and looked down at the thing in his palm. It took him a second to place the dreamcatcher, seeing as they weren't exactly common in New York, but then he took in the two-inch diameter loop, beaded string, and the three sparrow feathers dangling from the bottom. At the very top was a stone with a familiar looking symbol.

Zan glanced back up at Liz, mouth slightly agape. "How…"

"That marking on the Agate is Antarian for sleep. I wanted to do 'sweet dreams', but the only comparable translation is like ten characters long, so I improvised. " Liz explained, ignoring the question. She didn't want to outright tell him she knew about his nightmares, because – knowing Zan – he'd probably think it was embarrassing. "There's a loop on the top, and I've got a chain in my bag. I figured it'd be easier to wear it than to carry it around, but you don't have to."

When she finished, Zan looked back down at the dreamcatcher and swallowed.

Liz bit her lip. "What do you think?"

He didn't look up as he replied, voice catching just slightly. "I didn't get you anything."

For a second, Liz considered saying something glib like _you'll just have to owe me one_ or _shame on you, Zan_. But she wanted to be honest.

"You came back."

Zan's looked up at her for a split second, giving her a glimpse of shining eyes before he looked down and let his hair block his face from view. His hand slowly closed around the dreamcatcher in a gentle hold even as the other hand shut white-knuckled strong where he gripped the fabric of his jeans.

"Beth..." He whispered, whole body shaking for a moment. "Thank you."

* * *

><p><em>That night, half-way across the continent, five dying children woke up to see a man in blue leaning over them. In the morning, they would tell their parents about the angel who'd come to visit them in the night. The angel who'd saved their lives.<em>

_But their lives hadn't been saved. They'd been given all new lives. And though it would be years before their bodies were capable of activating the abilities they'd gained from his healing, the fates that came with those lives was sealed that night._

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>: Okay. Sorry about the randomness of putting in Ava's story and the kids story. I just wanted to remind you guys that they existed, cause I'm going to use them all at some point in the future. And just fyi… there's only going to be a few chapters left of this one, after which I'm gonna revise it, and then start posting the sequel.

Also, please put any critiques you guys may have in your reviews. I got the one about the spelling of _Isabel's _name (thank you, Jennifer), which I will be fixing when I revise it. Still, since I'd like to only revise it _once_, I'd like to know everything I've done wrong (or could do better) before I start.

Review.


	18. Chapter 16: Party

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: I'm so sorry. I suck at updating quickly. Tbh, it's been a couple months since I've felt like writing at all, and it's kind of hard to force yourself to write anything _good _when you're in that mode. But I've decided that in the interests of keeping my promise to finish this story, I'm going to speed things up a bit. There should only be a few chapters after this till the story is finished, so if things seem a bit hurried… I apologize. I'll fix it in the rewrite, when my need to write comes back. It always does, eventually.

I will be responding to some reviews at the bottom. I'll also have some notes at the bottom translating a basic binary thing I did. Basically, if you give every letter A-Z a number (A being 0), and then translate it to binary, you get a very basic binary alphabet. I use that alphabet in this chapter, so when you get to that part, scroll to the very bottom.

I hope you enjoy the chapter. (:

* * *

><p>"Ow, damn it!"<p>

Liz almost rolled her eyes. "_Focus_, Zan!"

"I _am _focusing, you crazy –" Liz launched another bean-bag at his stomach before he could finish what she was sure would've been a spectacular insult. The bean-bag gun was home-made, and specifically designed not to do any real damage, but it had enough force behind it to leave welts.

"Come on, Zan – are you even _trying_?" Liz mockingly complained, laughter in her voice.

"Yo, Beth," Zan growled, hands held out in front of him. "How 'bout I put a fuckin' blindfold on _you_ and shoot _you_ with the gun, an' see how you do, huh?"

Liz had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. After a second she gave up, because really, what did it matter if she smiled when he couldn't see her anyway? "This is no different than what we practiced earlier."

"The _fuck _it isn't –"

"You just have to focus." She continued, talking over Zan's muttering. "Reach out with your mind. _Feel _the room. Subconsciously, you know every single molecule around you – you couldn't manipulate them if you didn't."

Zan grumbled something she couldn't hear, and Liz sighed. "Come on, Zan! How is this any different than what we were doing before, when you caught the eggs before they hit the floor?"

"... Uh. Well. For one thing, in the hotel nobody was aimin' a friggin' weapon at me."

Liz shook her head and lowered the bulky toy gun. "This is the next logical step. I started with that because it's easier, but it's also a lot less useful. I mean, think about it! When are you going to really need this, Zan? When you're sitting in an empty hotel room by yourself? Or when you're in the middle of a fight in a place you don't know and people are shooting at you?"

There was a brief silence as Zan thought that through.

"Easy for you to say," Zan muttered, but despite the sullen irritation in his voice, Beth saw his jaw set in renewed determination. "You're not the one bein' shot at…"

Wisely, Liz chose not to respond. Instead, she smiled, aimed the bean-bag gun at his shoulder, and fired.

* * *

><p>Alex had the niggling feeling he'd forgotten something.<p>

Nothing big; it wasn't a full blown panicky feeling. It was much smaller than that, like… like a shadow bug in his brain, crawling and crawling and crawling… a tiny pocket filled with billowing cobwebs, a little empty place that almost _itched_.

It made his head throb, but he ignored it.

_I'm happy. A changed man. _

A voice deep down begged to differ. Did happy, changed men have throbbing headaches? Did they itch all the time? Sometimes badly enough that they wanted to rip open their own skulls just to get at it, to scratch, scratch, _scratch_ at the grey matter underneath until something pulled free?

Alex blinked and pushed the random thought aside.

_How dramatic was that? It's not that bad – _

–– (1)

_ I'm happy. I went to Sweden._

Alex tapped his fingers on the desk and flipped his biology book open. It was hard to focus sometimes, ever since he'd –

– _01011010000010010010_ – (2)

– gotten back from Sweden. Alex sighed and played with his pencil, the eraser and lead tapping out the same rhythm his fingers had a second before.

He missed Leanna. And the Olsen's. And the Northern Lights…

He just wished he could remember them better. It hadn't been that long ago, but somehow the image in his head was almost… static. He couldn't remember the way the colored lights had moved, or how they'd looked from where they'd parked the car down the hill. He could remember it, but… it was like looking at a picture. Or, to be specific, like looking at that slide he'd shown to Liz and Maria.

He supposed it was only because he'd looked at that slide so often that he couldn't remember anything more than that. That had to be the reason, right? Right.

–– (3)

_I'm happy. It's so beautiful in Sweden. _

_ I don't need Isabel anymore; I have Leanna…_

_– – (4)_

The phone rang.

"Hello?" Alex absently propped the receiver between his ear and shoulder and thumbed through the textbook, looking for the page with the chapter review. One hand reached up and started scratching the back of his head, harder and harder till the space under his nails filled with red.

Alex didn't notice.

_I'm happy. A changed man..._

* * *

><p>"… What the hell, Beth? Is this why you made me get this crap?"<p>

The words had pulled themselves from his mouth the minute Zan got back to the hotel, arms loaded with all the things Beth had sent him to buy over an hour ago. It had kinda pissed him off to be treated like an errand boy, and he'd been all ready to spend the rest of the night bitching about it, but the sight of Beth cradling a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels left him more than a little uneasy.

"No." Beth glanced up at him with an empty smile and took another drink. "I hate this stuff."

Zan blinked. "What?"

"Jack." She clarified, staring into the dark liquid as she tilted the bottle slowly back and forth. "I'mma much bigger fan ah girly drinks. Anythin' with rum…"

He considered taking the bottle from her, but was distracted by a strong bout of déjà-vu. It'd been just a couple months since he'd gotten drunk for the first time in his life, and despite all the problems it'd caused for them he still didn't regret it. He'd needed the violence of it to even start to cope with all the crap that had happened to him.

It was a weird, uncomfortable kind of thought, but maybe Beth needed a little of her own kind of violence now.

"Michael liked it." She mumbled, one thumb tracing the white lettering on the label. Her face was blank as her gaze drifted somewhere past the bottle in her hand. "Which is kinda weird, now that I think about it. I woulda pegged 'im as more of a beer guy. Or maybe whiskey or somethin'."

Zan wondered, briefly, what Rath's doppelganger was doing drinking alcohol at all – he still clearly remembered how Rath had responded to the stuff – but he really didn't give enough of a shit to bother asking.

"Are you… okay?"

The smile broadened into a manic grin. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and lifted the bottle to her mouth, swallowing convulsively once and then again, never taking her gaze off of him. When she finally finished, she set the Jack down on the nightstand with enough force to make the lamp shake and the glass wobble. "Not really."

Zan walked slowly towards her where she was sitting on the bed furthest from the door and squatted in front of her to see her expression more clearly. Her eyes locked on his with surprising intensity, though her face stayed eerily blank.

After a second, the intensity eased, and the locked gaze broke. Her eyes wondered to his forehead and down over his face, one hand rising slowly to cup the left side of his jaw with the same gentle reverence she'd held the bottle of Jack. She stared at the spot their skin touched, tears forming in her eyes and reflecting pieces of the off-white hotel light like stars.

The whole thing was so bizarre that Zan froze. Her thumb was tracing absent circles on his cheek the way it'd followed the lines on the label, and Zan absently wondered if she was always this touchy-feely when she was drunk.

But the weirdest part, beyond the intimacy of the touch or the smell of alcohol as her breath washed across his face, was the look she was giving him. The emptiness was still there, but there was something warmer in her expression now – something he'd seen a hundred times before on girls he passed in the street or danced with in clubs, but never, _never _on her.

"He died today, you know."

Still thrown by the craziness of the moment, Zan almost didn't hear her. "… Michael?"

"Max." She whispered, one tear slipping free. She tilted her head to get the bangs out of her face, and for a split second the trail it left behind caught the lamps reflection again and seemed to shine.

Zan blinked; it took him a second to remember where he knew that name from. When he mentally pulled back enough to think back to the few stories Beth had told him from before the war, the implications of that little word hit him hard.

With a wince, Zan reached up and grabbed her wrist, gently pulling her hand from his face and setting it back on her lap. He kept his hand there, half in comfort, and half to keep her from doing it again. He wanted to help her, but he wouldn't let her think of him like her dead husband. He might be a broken, pathetic excuse for the king he once was, but he still had too much pride for _that._

And if what he felt was a little less about his pride and a little more simple _hurt_... She didn't need to know that, and he sure as hell wasn't going to think too hard on it.

Zan grit his teeth and, still looking down at their hands, said forcefully, "I'm not Max."

She stared at him for a second, smiling somewhat bitterly. "Yeah, I know. Max was never as strong as you."

The compliment caught him by surprise, and he glanced sharply back towards her face. The odd heat in her eyes was gone, but when she smiled her gaze was completely in the present.

Zan stared for a second, then looked away and cleared his throat. He stood and took a few steps back toward the other bed, hand sliding away from her wrist. He sat down on the mattress, springs complaining audibly as it took his weight.

He'd never been good at this kind of thing.

Weirdly enough, if Lonnie or Ava were ever upset, it was almost always Rath who stepped in to calm them down. He might've been a dick, but he was actually pretty good with getting people to chill out – something Zan had always secretly been a little jealous of. When Zan or Rath was pissed, they'd go out somewhere and hit on girls, or pick a fight, or steal something big (they'd gotten their flat-screen TV, the play station and the sound system on days like that). But obviously, those options wouldn't work with Beth.

But really, what other option did he have? He wanted to help, but he couldn't do the talking thing, the way Ava did, and he just wasn't the kind of guy who was comfortable with hugs or whatever.

Zan grit his teeth in frustration and looked around the hotel room. His eyes locked on the little case of CD's they'd collected on their trip – one of the weirdest mixes of death metal and pop he'd ever been stuck listening to – and locked there. He thought of those CD's and the clubs he'd gone to with his crew, and something formed in the back of his mind.

So, maybe he wasn't any good with grief. But he knew a little bit about the benefits of losing control.

It was a bad idea. But it was the only one he had, right now.

Before he could talk himself out of it (and he would, if he let himself think for a minute), Zan stood and grabbed the keys to their stolen van. Without pausing, he also swiped the case of CD's and the bottle of Jack. After a second of shuffling, he got one arm free and grabbed on to Beth's wrist. "Come on."

She looked crazy confused, but she followed him anyway. He locked the hotel room behind them (though he had to go back in to get the room key) and dragged her toward the van. In minutes they were off, heading away from the hotel – and, not long after, the entire po-dunk little town Beth'd stuck them in – and towards where the sun was already beginning to set over the Nevada desert.

He'd been a little surprised when Beth'd brought him here, circling around New Mexico and then turning North again at the border. When he'd asked, all she'd said was that '_it wasn't time to be there yet_', and that they couldn't risk getting too close to her home town right now. He thought there was probably more to it than that, but it was obvious she didn't want to talk about it, so he'd just decided to drop it and come back to the subject later.

It was already dark before Zan got far enough into the desert for what he was planning. He pulled off the road, ignoring the awkward way the van shook on the uneven dirt, and drove just long enough that the road behind them was out of sight. Only then did he look at Beth – who'd been stuttering questions since they'd left the hotel – and grin.

"What're you waitin' for?" He hopped out of the car, taking the Jack and the CD's with him. Beth stayed in the van for a second, gaping at him from behind the windshield. But if there was one thing he'd learned about Beth in three months, it was that she was curious as hell, so after a couple minutes fighting the impulse she stepped out of the van and stalked toward him.

"What the hell are we doing?" Zan grinned again, happy that all traces of that blank look had gone away. Of course, it'd been swallowed by her obvious irritation with him, but he didn't let that bother him too much.

"We…" Zan answered with a smirk, taking a few steps back in case she decided to take a swing at him. "Are going to _express _ourselves."

Beth blinked. "We're… what?"

Zan popped open the bottle of Jack and took a swig. Beth's eyes went wide and she took a quick step forward to stop him, but without using her abilities she didn't stand a chance. Zan winced a little as the liquid burned its way down his throat, but he didn't try to keep hold of the bottle when Beth furiously jerked it from his hand.

"Jesus, Zan -!" She snapped, looking around as if she expected alien hunters to sense his lapse in judgment and start popping up out of nowhere. "Did you forget what this stuff does to you?"

"Nope." He mumbled, popping the _puh_ sound. He leaned his head back as the world started to spin around him, nerves already dancing with excitement. "Only way i' works, dough."

Beth stared. "The only way what works?"

Zan pulled out one of the CD's at random, looking around for a likely rock. Sober, there's no way he could do this – Lonnie was the only one he knew that could, actually – but he remembered how powerful he'd felt the last time he'd gotten drunk. Things that would've taken all his concentration took almost no effort, and things he'd never have been able to do had suddenly been possible.

Zan found a rock jutting about a foot up from the ground, and with a wave of his hand he flattened it. He laid the CD – title side down – on top of the rock, and with a twist of his wrist set the molecules around it to reading.

It took a few seconds experimentation, but in a moment the music started, clear as if the band were _right there_. Next, he used what Beth had been teaching him and reached out with his mind, quickly picking as many little rocks as he could find nearby, lifting them into the air and filling them with just enough energy to start to glow. They flashed blue, pink, green, and half a dozen other colors based on whatever minerals they were made up of. Zan grinned and gave a twitch of his wrist, watching them spin in the air above them like a mini galaxy...

_More_…

Eyes drifting closed again, Zan reached out through the ground around him, instinctively reaching out for the molecules he needed. They collected underneath the galaxy in a tiny cloud of particles. He squeezed, pushing them together without letting them solidify. He layered it slowly, adding particles of anything he could find to keep his little surprise from simply exploding. When he opened his eyes again, there was a ball on the ground before him spitting colored sparks.

All in the time it had taken him to blink.

Zan stared, warm and dizzy and smug with the high of it. He turned to Beth with a grin to see her gaping at his handiwork, eyes wide and enraptured.

"Nobody's _here_!" Zan shouted over the music, gesturing so strongly he almost fell over backwards. Beth snorted, smiling reluctantly at him across the alien firework. Zan grinned and tossed the Jack her way – which, in retrospect, might've been a mistake in his condition. She had to scramble to catch it, and Zan was caught between apologizing and laughing at her. "Come on, Bef. Show me wha' you can do."

Beth stared at him. "Did you just call me _Bef_?"

"Prob'ly." Zan smirked unrepentantly and then ignored her and went back to what he'd been saying. "Ya scared, lil' girl?"

"Dream on, _kiddo_." Beth rolled her eyes. She opened the Jack and took another swig, then closed the bottle and dropped it gently on the sand behind her. She lifted both arms slowly up into the air.

Green flames rose in a five foot ring around their little arena.

Zan blinked and nodded, a little impressed in spite of himself. The flames shrunk until they were only a few inches off the ground, and he let his expression turn patronizing, just to piss her off. "Not bad, for an ol' lady."

Beth glared, but the look lacked any real heat. "Little girl, old lady – make up your mind already, Zan."

Zan started to say something flippant, but phantom fingers pinched his cheek and he flinched backwards. "Yo, wha' was dat?"

The little brunette across from him pretended to frown, glee showing through the twisted corners of her lips. "What, can't you do that? Huh. My mistake."

This time, she pinched his shoulder. Zan narrowed his eyes, unconsciously reaching for the knowledge he needed to understand what she was doing. His mind followed the path and found a little knot of something, a little twitch that pushed him toward a connection he didn't even know he'd formed. He followed it to her mind, to the warm and buzzing feeling he'd come to recognize after months of meditation and familiarity as _her. _And once he found it, he reached out…

And pinched.

Beth jumped, smile dropping as her eyes rounded. "Hey!"

World still spinning a little, Zan snorted and started laughing. Beth reached down and rubbed her calf, glaring balefully at him as he fell on his ass and laughed even louder.

"That was… quicker than I expected."

She'd muttered it under her breath, but somehow, despite the music and the sparking firework between them, he could hear her. Zan mentally reached out and tugged at the mental connection between them, and Beth let out a shocked shriek of laughter.

"What the hell was that?" She held her arms around her waist, shocked and smiling.

"Wha'? Can't you do dat? Huh. My mistake." Zan mocked. "Thought you were tough shit or somethin'."

Beth shook her head, body still guarding her middle as if that would fend off another mental attack. She grinned at him across the sparkler and rebuked, "Why can't you be this good of a student sober?"

Zan shook his head, groaning as the motion made him nauseous.

"I ain't your studen' right now, Beth." He was careful with her name this time. The little spinning galaxy had caught his attention, and his eyes searched for a little red rock to one side while his mouth ran on its own. "I 'ready learned all dis stuff once..."

"You… you remember?" Beth muttered, voice quiet and awed.

"Nope." Zan pushed himself to his feet, wobbling unsteadily, and made his way over to the sparkler so he could look at the star-rocks up close. Star-rocks. Rock-stars? Zan snorted. "Rock stars."

Beth blinked at him. "What?"

He pointed at the galaxy, grinning. "Rock stars, Beth."

Beth glanced at the galaxy, looked back at him dubiously, and shook her head. She tried to look disturbed, but another reluctant smile forced its way onto her face. "God. I forgot how weird you guys get when you're drunk."

Zan ignored her and turned to crank up the music. He bobbed his head and spun, enjoying the way the alcohol made him feel almost like he was flying. He tilted sideways and barely caught his balance, stumbling sideways and laughing at how stupid he must look. He turned to Beth and stuck his hand out toward her.

"Wanna dance?"

Beth stared at him for a long moment. She reached her hand out to one side, the bottle of Jack shooting from the sand into her palm, and took another gulp. She winced as it slid down, then capped the bottle and stared again.

A long moment passed like that - her staring and him holding out his hand and trying not to let the world's spinning disorient him - before she shrugged. "Sure. Why not, right? Nobody's here."

Zan smiled, grabbing her hand and spinning...

* * *

><p><em>Liz watched through the mirror as Zan washed his hands in a bathroom painted yellow. <em>

_ There was a little, easy smile on his face, and his eyes were a thousand miles away. She'd never seen quite that look on his face before; she had the feeling it wasn't the kind of expression he made when people could see him. It was a shame, really, because it suited him. _

_ When he finished, he turned off the faucet, and the sudden loss of sound left a frigid vacuum in the air that made the hairs on her arms rise up. Zan didn't seem to feel it at first, but then the smile on his face dimmed and his gaze gained a new, sharp focus. _

_ "Beth?" He called, as if Liz wasn't right in the bathroom with him. Except, of course, she wasn't; although she felt as if she was standing just behind him, the reflection in the mirror showed only Zan and that retina-burning yellow wall. "You a'ight?" _

_ Zan absently grabbed one of the towels on the shelf, scrubbing his hands hard for a second to dry them before tossing it back on the counter. Nobody answered and Zan's eyes locked on the door now, nothing left of his smile. _

_ "Beth?" _

_ Zan pulled the door open, stepping quickly into an unfamiliar hotel room. There were little lilacs on the wallpaper and a framed painting of a cactus by the television. The beds were robed in thick, off-white blankets, edged with floral-patterned lace. The shade of the lamp between the beds boasted long, tacky silver fringe. _

_ Across the room, the faint light of sunrise was visible through the open door. And through that door Liz could see a familiar van in the parking lot – one door also open, with what looked like a loaf of bread on the asphalt beside it.  
><em>

__Liz listed this all in her head, one strange, telling detail after another.__

_ Beside her, Zan had gone stiff. _

_ "Beth!" Zan called, much more urgently this time. He took a step forward as a dark silhouette appeared in the doorway. It moved, but before Liz's eyes could adjust to the sunlight and see what it was he'd done, a soft pop echoed from his shadow and a streak of color zipped through her peripheral. _

_ Zan stumbled, and Liz turned to see a dart embedded in his shoulder. He blinked, raised one hand in the direction of his attacker, and then stumbled backwards into the wall. In less than a few seconds, his eyes rolled up into his head and he slid sideways to the floor. _

_ Time was short – she could feel it – and Liz searched the room desperately for some marker, a calendar or anything with a date on it, ignoring the masked man as he came through the doorway and made his way towards Zan. Seconds passed and Liz could feel the vision fading before she spotted the digital alarm clock flashing red numbers at her from the other side of the room._

**8:15**

* * *

><p>Liz blinked awake.<p>

Light burned her eyes, sending razor blades straight to her head. Liz squeezed her eyes shut again and groaned, turning around and burying her face into the warm fabric of her pillow. She took a deep breath and tried to will the throbbing to go away, one hand sliding around the pillow so she could pull it –

… Liz froze.

Her "pillow" had a very impressive set of abs.

Liz's eyes snapped open. She jumped backwards, hangover throbbing in warning as she scrambled away from the sleeping teenager she'd been laying next to. Liz did a quick clothing check, just to be sure that nothing – _oh god no I don't want to think about it, it didn't happen it didn't happen_ – inappropriate had gone on, but other than her jacket, which had mysteriously disappeared, they were both fully clothed.

She took a deep, relieved breath and rubbed her hands along her face, trying to remember where they were and how they'd gotten here. It came back quickly, everything from her sudden realization that it was the anniversary of Max's death to her embarrassing drunken rant to the odd, two-person party Zan had thrown for her in the desert. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd done something as stupid as this, and the memory of how ridiculous she'd acted the night before turned both of her cheeks a vivid cherry red.

But after a second of kicking herself, she realized something freeing.

She didn't regret one moment of it.

It'd been fun - the kind of fun she hadn't had since before her baby died, so many years before. In fact, it might even be the first true fun she'd had since Alex died. And no matter how strange and embarrassing it was... she'd _needed _that.

But the slow smile that had formed on her face faded quickly.

She'd had a vision.

She knew the feel of those by now, even after so many years without them. Even asleep, she'd recognized the symptoms - that's why she'd been so quick to catalogue as many details as she could. She'd already known she'd be needing them...

Those details were much clearer than any dream would be, and she wasn't likely to forget them. But just in case, she focused on memorizing them anyway.

_Yellow bathroom. _

_Lilacs on the wallpaper. _

_Cactus painting. _

_Lace on the beadspread. _

_Silver fringed lamp shade. _

_8:15_ _AM.  
><em>

They'd still been using the van in her vision, and the thought crossed her mind to ditch it the moment they got into town, but Liz knew better than to think that would help. Changing cars wouldn't stop what was going to happen. In fact, the only thing she could think of that would change anything at all was to change nothing until they found the hotel she'd seen in the vision. When she saw that room again, she'd know someone was close to finding them, and she'd take the opportunity to teach Zan all the finer points of losing a tail.

But just because she had a plan didn't mean she felt safe. Liz's hands shook as she crawled into the front seat and started up the van, Zan grumbling some kind of protest and rolling over to go back to sleep in the back. Liz turned around and headed for the road; they needed to go to the motel where they'd left their stuff - a motel with blue walls. But while she was focusing on navigating roads she barely knew, some part of her kept thinking back to the image of the van in her dream, one door open and a loaf of bread on the ground beneath it.

They'd come to take Zan; that much was obvious.

But what had they done with her?

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Only a couple chapters left, guys!

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><p><strong>Reviews:<strong>

_Squeegybug_: You asked a lot of questions, and I want to answer them, I _really _do, but some of those answers are spoilers. Be patient . As for the long view bit… well, I'm operating on the assumption that she'd think like I do, and assume any little change would have ripple effects and have huge consequences, so even a little info would make a big difference. Also, as I've mentioned before, she's scared that if she tries messing with something as complicated as changing time, she'll mess it up, so in some ways she was originally taking the cowards way out and giving up the responsibility. But, for obvious reasons, she can't do that now. ;)

_Mxsteck_: To start with, I have a very, very good reason for calling her Beth that won't come up till the sequel (if and when I get around to writing it). Also… dear god _yes_, I've noticed the weirdness of their relationship. It started because I wasn't sure if I was going to pair them or not (I was leaving it up to the reviewers), but I was sure I wanted them to be close. Thus, I left both doors open and somehow ended up going down a third, vaguely disturbing path. On the other hand, given what both of them have been through, I'm not sure it's all that inappropriate for them to have such a strange dynamic – neither one of them is really stable at this point. This chapter is dedicated to you, btw, for being the only one to point it out so far. (:

_Nichole:_ I'm glad you approve, and she will be telling him more of the truth, but due in large part to my having sped things up so much… we won't be seeing much of it. There will be pretty decently sized time skips in the near future.

_Marzmez:_ Who's the one following them? Oh, you'll see soon enough. X)

I want to say thank you to everyone who reviewed, and to all I didn't respond to personally up above. I hope you're all still reading despite my horrible updating time. :\

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><p><strong>Binary Translation!<strong>

1)= IT HURTS

2) _01011010000010010010 _= LIES

3)= HELP ME

4) SHE LIES

Please, pretty please review?


	19. Chapter 17: Flowers

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Two more chapters! This stuff is really sped up though, so there may be some stuff missing or rushed - I apologize again for that. Still, hope you enjoy. (:

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><p>Time passed.<p>

Liz checked every hotel room thoroughly before they spent the night, checking for lilacs on the wallpaper and silver fringe on the lamps, but none of them matched the room she'd seen in the vision. She knew, because she'd seen it three more times since they'd left Nevada – each time while she'd been asleep.

Eventually, though, she started to relax. It wasn't something she needed to worry about; she'd know the minute she saw the room from her vision and she'd immediately pack the both of them back into the van. They'd be three states over by morning.

In the meantime, Liz decided to take Zan's training up a notch. For practical reasons, she kept the focus on teaching him to expand his mental abilities; war was just over the horizon, and she wanted to make sure he was prepared for the threats he would face. But having said that, she also knew there was more he'd need to know – things that went beyond war, like politics and history, and she couldn't guarantee he'd understand those subjects with only words in a notebook.

So she spent their time together while driving quizzing him on his Antarian, helping him memorize the abilities and most important members of all the High Houses, outlining the laws and trade agreements between the planets, and recounting all of the most important battles of the Rebellion. It was just a general outline of the things she'd detailed in her notebooks, but it helped her see what he was having trouble understanding so she could head off any problems that might come up in the future.

At night in the hotels they stayed at, Zan spent hours meditating. Liz guided him at first, but as time went by he needed less and less help in this arena; what memories he got back were foggy and distant, but the old instincts he was recovering from the back of his mind were sharp and shockingly powerful. Liz made sure to stop for hours at a time in different deserted locations to spar so Zan could brush the dust off those instincts and make them automatic again.

In was strange, to be training one of the Four. When Liz had learned these things, she was always at least months – but usually years – behind what Max and the others were doing. Watching Zan progress so quickly when the Hybrids she'd trained and even Liz herself had taken half-a-decade to get so far… well, it was both humbling and truly awe-inspiring.

He gave her hope that maybe, this time, things would be different.

Not that she'd _ever _tell him that, of course.

"What's the big fucking deal with the Granolith?"

Liz glanced over at Zan, who was thumbing through one of her war related journals. She looked back to the road as soon as she understood the random question – it was a straight shot to California, but with a speed limit of 75 it wasn't safe to let her eyes stray for too long.

"Well, uh…" Liz blinked. The Granolith wasn't exactly easy to explain – there were entire tomes in Antar that tried and failed to do just that. It wasn't like he needed a step by step build-it-yourself description, though, so she could probably get away with just the highlights. "It's this vaguely mysterious machine your people built back when they were just starting to colonize other planets. The legend goes that the power of the Granolith was what started the wars – but I don't know how much of that is accurate. Looking at what records they still have of the time, it looks more like power plays - all these new planets, all these new resources and nobody wanted to lose out on their share of the profits, you know?

"But the wars got pretty bad; they lasted longer than any conflict in human history. Finally the leader of Pilenia – Larek's ancestor – formed an alliance with four other Houses and manages to win it. They had all the beaten Houses sign a treaty called The Accord, which has this set of laws each of the five worlds has to follow. One of them provides that the King of Antar must always possess the Granolith. Don't ask me why, I don't really get it either.

"Long story – well, still pretty long, it's almost like the crown of Antar. According to Serena, whoever has the Granolith is considered rightful King – although that obviously didn't work real well for Kivar, considering he had it in my time line and the people still hated his guts."

"Who's this Serena chick?"

Liz glanced at Zan again, trying to think of a way to sum up a description of one of the most indefinable people she'd ever met. "She's… a Skin. I met her at Brown University – I snuck in to do a little research on the genetic alterations the Hybrids were experiencing. She was there posing as a Physics student, and she caught me. One thing led to another, and before long she was one my best friends. "

Liz smiled, remembering the Skin's passion about the Rebellion. She'd never tried to push Liz to get involved again after she'd started working on her little side-project, although she'd obviously wanted to. But that was half her dedication to the cause and half her curiosity about what Liz was up to; Liz hadn't told anybody other than Michael about her time machine under orders.

Had she not promised Michael, though, she would've. Serena was one of the few people Liz trusted; hell, everyone trusted Serena – even Michael, although he'd never admit it. The only person that didn't seem to like the Skin was Ava, but Liz figured that was because she'd never actually met the girl, since Ava had run the Rebellion off the West Coast and Serena played her part in the East. Had she met Serena, Liz was sure Ava would've liked her. Serena just… brought out the lighter side in people.

And something about that made a thought form in her mind, but before Liz could grasp it, it faded. Liz shook her head and ignored it – she'd probably remember it if it was important.

Still, the strange feeling that she'd forgotten something plagued the rest of the day.

* * *

><p>Max left Tess's house with the feel of her skin on his palm.<p>

Tonight, she'd told him about their wedding. The custom was different on Antar; weddings lasted days, and each family had different ceremonies that needed to be performed. She'd told him about the taste of the wines – or wine's equivalent, anyway – and the way he'd bumped into the monarch of Darr and barely escaped offending an entire planet.

He hadn't really known what to think about the story, at first. Oh, he hadn't doubted it – what possible reason would Tess have to lie about this? – but something about the words she'd used had sounded… off. He'd had the vague feeling he should remember it, that the whole situation had been distantly familiar, like some forgotten dream. Except that he couldn't help thinking he must remember it a little differently than she did, despite the fact that not even he really knew what he meant by that.

But then, as she'd been describing the light show her mother had arranged for her family's traditional ceremony, he'd seen a sudden image of it in his head, and all the other pieces had fallen into place. It was still a little foggy and distant, but he could clearly remember the way the lights had bounced off the dome above their heads, twisting the colors into a thousand surreal streams of fractal light.

He remembered the way it'd felt to kiss her.

Max'd pulled away then, feeling embarrassed and guilty without really knowing why. Tess had just smiled at him and said he'd made good progress; there was no real reason to keep going if he didn't want to. Usually, that voice that always insisted that he shouldn't risk offending people would've pushed him to deny it – to keep working until she really felt satisfied that they'd gotten all they could from the lesson. But tonight, that side of him had been silent, and Max was grateful for the reprieve.

He couldn't stop thinking about Liz.

It was wrong – he knew it was wrong. They weren't together anymore; she'd slept with Kyle, and something he didn't really understand was happening between him and Tess. There were at least a dozen reasons this was unhealthy and stupid and just in general a _bad idea_, but he couldn't help himself.

The strange dreams he'd started having after Liz slept with Kyle hadn't gone away, either. Instead, they'd grown stronger – more vivid. Some nights Max woke gasping for breath, lost in oddly vivid images of bloodshed and horror. Other nights he woke gasping for entirely different reasons, half-remember caresses still whispering along his skin. He could never remember the details for very long, but the general feel of them stayed with him all day, messing with his routine and digging at his confidence.

He couldn't believe he was doing this to himself. He'd always thought that if he was ever in this situation – as in, walking in on his girlfriend having sex with someone else – that he'd handle it with whatever dignity he could salvage. He'd never thought he'd... _moon_ like this.

Max sighed and gracefully lifted himself in through his window. His parents didn't know he was gone; he'd never been the type to sneak out, so they didn't keep a very close eye on him in the evenings. He just had to wait until they came by to say goodnight and lock up behind him – there was no reason to leave it open for intruders when he had the ability to open locks with his mind, after all.

The house was silent when he slipped in, but Max didn't really notice. He was lost in thought, memories of his and Tess's – or Zan and Ava's – wedding floating through his mind. That feeling was real; he really had loved Tess in their old lives. Not with the kind of passion he'd had for Liz - the terrifying, no-one-in-the-room-but-you feeling that'd gripped him since the moment he'd seen her - but still real love. And what made it worse was that, like the dreams, those feelings had started to linger after their little sessions, longer and longer every time…

Max quickly pulled on some more comfortable clothes and flipped off the light. He didn't want to think about this. He didn't want to wonder what was wrong with him that he'd fight so hard to keep from loving a girl who worshiped him, and hold on so desperately to dreams of another girl who'd already moved on with her life.

He threw himself on the bed and got comfortable, but for the longest time sleep simply wouldn't come. Despite all the terrible things that sometimes happened in his dreams - people dying, people he cared about fighting battles with an enemy they couldn't beat - there was something inexplicably attractive about living a whole other life in his sleep, a life where Liz still looked at him like he was the most important person in the world. It was hard to settle down when he knew that might be waiting for him.

Eventually, though, he did start to settle into sleep.

And almost instantly, the window slammed back open.

Max sat straight up, heart pounding as he tensed against a possible attack. But instead of a swat team or a shape-shifter, his eyes fell on a very familiar silhouette.

_Michael?_

"What's going on?" Max said sharply, suddenly terrified somebody had been hurt. Anything could've happened while he was away, and the only thing he could be sure of was that Tess, at least, was safe.

But even as Max shoved the blankets aside and started to push himself to his feet, he realized there was something else going on. Michael was usually pretty calm in bad situations – when people needed help, he was always pretty rational and to-the-point. It was only afterwards that his rage got in the way and made him sloppy and unreasonable.

Michael's energy wasn't angry or urgent, though. He was pacing, and hunched, and looking weirdly crazed. If anything, Michael looked absolutely terrified, which was an expression Max couldn't remember ever having seen on him before.

"We are _leaving _is what's going on –" Michael shuddered, bringing one hand up to wipe the sweat from his forehead. "You and me, we're getting out of town for a couple days."

* * *

><p>Liz stared, feeling kind of sick.<p>

"You know, no matter how many times I see it, I still don't understand the food you people eat." Liz muttered, grossed out beyond belief. Zan had suggested they take a break on training for the night, and Liz had reluctantly agreed. But she really should've known better about letting him pick the snacks – no good ever came from letting an alien pick your food.

Too bad she couldn't use that excuse on the disgusted-looking delivery boy, who'd held Zan's anchovy pineapple pizza at arm's length when she paid him. Instead, she'd pointed to the supreme one on the bottom and desperately tried to explain that it was hers. In the end, she hadn't exactly been surprised when he'd left so quickly he'd forgotten the tip.

Zan grinned around a mouthful of hot-sauced strawberry ice-cream. He stuck his tongue out at her, still covered in pink-red goo.

"Ew_ww_ – Zan, mouth closed!"

Zan swallowed and scowled. "Yo – what do ya mean, '_you people_'?"

Liz turned back to the zombie movie, pushing aside her own bowl of ice-cream. "You know – you alien people. With your crazy spicy-sweet obsession."

"Crazy? My ass, lady." Zan took another big bite of ice-cream. Just because he knew it annoyed her, he turned to face her as he talked around the melting mess. "'S delicious, an' you know it."

Liz shuddered and tossed a glare his way. "Uh – no. That was always more Kyle's thing."

Zan swallowed and watched a zombie latch onto some guy's stomach. The obviously fake gore made him want to both laugh and shake his head in shame – he was pretty sure the 'guts' were sausages or something, but he should probably give them props for effort anyway. "Kyle?"

Liz blinked and glanced sideways at him. "Yeah – you remember. The guy who lead the Rebellion near the end? Human, but you couldn't tell it by the way he eats. Ate. Er… will eat?"

Zan shook his head, no more enlightened on how they should term that then she was.

The lead character spun around, catching a zombie trying to sneak up on him. The rifle fired just as the camera switched angles, and if you ignored the way they'd instantaneously changed position in the room, it was actually a pretty successful switch. "What d'ya think? Three pointer?"

Liz frowned. "Hard to say. I mean, in that frame – yeah. But he was a lot closer a couple seconds ago. I'd say two points."

Zan watched for a minute and nodded.

A few minutes later, the busty blonde lead grabbed a rifle and suddenly grew a backbone. Her boyfriend, who mere moments before had been a major bad-ass, suddenly forgot that a zombie isn't dead if it isn't headless. Busty blonde survived. Bad-ass boyfriend… not so much. The tearful drama of the death scene would have been a lot more touching if the two watching hadn't had money riding on who lived.

Liz groaned and dropped her head into her hand.

Zan grinned. "Told ya."

Liz scowled and leaned back. "Yeah, yeah. _Shoulda_ been the guy, though."

Zan snorted. "Please, bitch. Kids and hot leadin' ladies always survive."

Liz glanced over, expression going blank. "Hmm."

The odd tone in her voice caught Zan's attention, and something on her face killed his amusement. They both looked back at the TV, and for a long moment they were silent.

"You owe me ten bucks, loser." Zan finally grumbled. Liz glanced at him and smiled.

"Double or nothing the zombie in the truck comes back in the last five minutes."

"Dude got bashed with a baseball bat." Zan scoffed, then paused. Despite his protest , he was pretty sure she was right. But the odd look that'd passed over her face seconds before still lingered in his mind... "You're on."

* * *

><p>"… Why are we doin' this, again?" Zan murmured without opening his eyes. Beth sighed, and for a second he imagined he could feel her annoyance rippling through her palms. Zan grinned, more amused than he should be by her reaction. "I mean – don't get me wrong, it beats the hell out of dodging friggin' bean bags…"<p>

"Because the more of your memories we can recover, the less of your original training we'll have to redo." She retorted calmly. Then, after a second she sniped, "And because I'm older than you, and I said so."

"You ain't older than me." Zan scoffed, eyes opening to narrow in her direction. "I'm, like, a hundred or whatever."

Beth sighed, and behind her closed eyes he could see her eyes roll. "One, the forty years you spent incubating in the pod thingy doesn't count – you weren't even awake for it. Two, as long as you're using words like _ain't _and _like_, I'm not acknowledging the other sixty years you spent as royalty, either."

Zan snorted, sticking his nose in the air and smiling. Beth still hadn't opened her eyes, so he didn't really bother schooling his expression yet. "You just called it a pod _thingy_, and you're complaining about how I talk? Besides – if we're gonna be technical here, you're seventeen."

Beth's eyes finally opened, filled with confusion for the brief second it took her to figure out what he meant. Zan had just enough time to paste a mocking frown on his face before she tossed him a resigned glare. He huffed, "If you won't count past lives, I _ain't _counting time travel."

"Just…" Beth growled, closing her eyes with enough force that her whole forehead wrinkled. "Can we get back to focusing, please?"

Zan stuck his tongue out. Without looking, Beth flicked him on the arm.

He scowled at her, but obediently closed his eyes and started the meditation. He really didn't know how to feel about this part of his training. At first, he'd hated it; any amount of time sitting in the quiet and trying to clear his head inevitably brought him back to memories of his crew. It had been a totally frustrating and useless experience until the night she'd given him the dreamcatcher.

The first time they'd meditated after Christmas, he'd been able to feel her presence on his peripheral. He was sure Beth would've explained it, had he ever bothered asking, but he hadn't needed to. After that night, he'd started to trust her, which had given her a door into his mind.

That connection had only grown. Given a little time to sober up after the night in the desert, he'd realized that that connection was what Beth had used to pinch him, and what he'd grasped when he'd gone to pinch her back.

It didn't really bother him – in fact, with her there to guide him he'd finally started getting something out of the training. It started with little memories he'd had to drag to the present, re-experiencing only pieces at a time. But the more they'd done, the easier it'd been to grasp at things he thought he'd forgotten, and the quicker they came to him when he did.

Now, even after the meditations had finished, the memories kept coming. He'd dreamt of the day he'd been coronated the night before, and the vision of hundreds of thousands of people spread out beneath him in the freakishly huge palace courtyard was still vibrant in his mind.

That part excited him, obviously. But another part of his mind kept reminding him that soon he'd remember other things, things he might not _want _to remember.

Things like the day he died, or the day his father died. The first time Lonnie had betrayed him.

Zan pushed these thoughts aside and cleared his mind, easing back into the meditation. He wasn't the kind of coward that would run from some bad dreams. If he could stand actually going through it, he could stand remembering it, too.

And if he gripped Beth's hands a little tighter at the thought, she didn't seem to mind.

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><p>Liz left Zan to rent a room in the lobby of the hotel after a long afternoon of sparring and came back still swinging.<p>

"I'm telling you, Zan, you've got to get passed this whole arm lifting thing. It's unnecessary and it telegraphs what you're going to do."

Zan snorted. "Bullshit. I lift my hand I could be doing whatever – I could be throwing up a shield or throwing shit or throwing _them_. Just cause I lift my hand doesn't mean they know what I'm gonna do."

"But they know not to give you the time to do it." Liz retorted in annoyance. She hated debates, especially stupid ones where she knew she was right and the other person wouldn't listen. "Whether you do it for a shield or for an attack, they know you're doing _something _– and more importantly, they know where you're aiming."

Zan had already pulled their bags out of the van and was tapping his foot impatiently. She passed him the key with a little more force than was strictly necessary. "Yeah, well, if it's so damn important not to raise your hand then why do _you_ do it?"

Liz waved her hand, trying to create the impression that it was no big deal, despite the little hint of a blush staining her cheeks. "I… have to. I'm not like you guys – nothing I do is automatic. If I gesture with my arm, my brain's already sending out impulses to move in that direction, so it means I only have to focus on using the abilities – not aiming them."

Absently, Liz slid open the vans door. The groceries from before were still there, hot from being left in the car while they sparred.

"So, doesn't that mean it's better to do it like that?" Zan challenged, one backpack hanging from each shoulder and their room key in his hand. "Shave off a bit of reaction time if I don't have to aim."

Liz rolled her eyes, trying not to feel jealous. "You don't have to aim _anyway_, Zan. You just look at something and your mind already knows what it has to do."

"Yeah, well…" Zan backed off a few steps in the direction of their room, still looking at her. "I still think it's stupid."

"You think everything's stupid." Liz grumbled. Zan grinned and turned away.

Usually, Liz would've made him take a few of the bags, but he'd been complaining about having to use the bathroom for the past hour or so, so she'd decided to take pity on him. Liz shook her head and reached out, pulling the first plastic bag within reach toward her. A loaf of bread slid out, tumbling from the seat onto the ground.

The hair on Liz's neck stood on end as every instinct called a warning.

Liz spun, and despite every fiber of her being screaming at her to run, she froze in complete and total disbelief.

"You…" Liz whispered, mind clouding with shock. The pretty face in front of her smiled, and force like an hammer broke through the walls of her mind.

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><p>This place was friggin' ridiculous.<p>

It was obvious from the sign out front that it was supposed to have some kind of 70's theme, but apart from the kitschy lamp with the silver fringe, it looked like just about every other hotel they'd stopped at since they left New York. Well – except that one place with the water theme. That place had gone all out with water beds, plastic fish decals on the wall and chipped plaster shells on the molding.

_Classy_.

Zan smiled and shook his head, wondering how Beth kept finding these places.

As he finished washing his hands and turned off the water, he realized he still hadn't heard Beth come in. Usually, Beth was careful to make noise when she came into a room, and Zan returned the favor; both of them were twitchy as hell, and they didn't want to risk getting blasted into a wall. Of course, Beth could've just forgot this time, or maybe she'd said something he just hadn't heard over the water, but…

"Beth?" Zan called, drying his hands. He pulled open the door and stepped out of the bathroom, giving him a direct line of sight to the van.

His eyes focused in on the bread left on the asphalt, and Zan felt his heart stop. "Beth!"

Somebody stepped into the door frame, and for one seriously stupid moment he thought the six-foot dude might be Beth. By the time logic cut in, the silhouette moved and Zan felt pain burst from his shoulder in a spiral of sharp fire. Zan's hand lifted, but he couldn't aim; the world was spinning around him, and the fire – dulled to warm throbbing – left weakness in its wake. Zan grunted, falling to his knees and then his back as his body shook and went numb.

The form in the doorway moved toward Zan, grabbing the paralyzed teen around the waist and swinging him over one broad shoulder. As the big guy lumbered outside, Zan's fading vision caught sight of a girl standing by a van – not the navy-blue one he and Beth had been using, but a white van with tinted windows. She smiled at him, and suddenly Zan recognized a much younger face inside her own.

He could feel himself fading, but the horror of the moment helped him fight it back a few more seconds.

"… Jenny?"

She walked toward him and ran thin fingers through his hair. "Yo. Long time no see."

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><p><strong>AN:<strong> Only a couple chapters left, guys!

Please, pretty please review?


	20. Chapter 18: Traitor

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Oookay. So, it took me a while to get this out, but on the plus side, it's a pretty long one. I also didn't edit it a lot, cause I'm on a roll here and I wanted to get as much possible done before the urge to write wears off, so I'm just going to post this as is (the only mistake of note I've corrected is fixing "standing up just as the van hit a bum" to "standing up just as the van hit a bump", to avoid making you guys think I'm okay with casual vehicular homicide). Hope you enjoy – and read the author's note at the bottom! It has important info.

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><p>Zan fought tooth and nail to drag himself out from under whatever they'd shot him up with, but even still he did little more than turn his head as the big guy who'd shot him carried him into a van with tinted windows. The world spun and bobbed around him, pulling thin in places and bubbling up in others. Zan groaned, so dizzy he felt sick.<p>

He tried to shove the guy away, but his arm just raised up weakly before falling limp onto the floor beside him. Or – not the floor, but something warmer, softer… His head lolled to the side, and the motion made his stomach lurch. It took a moment for him to focus through the blur, but when he did his heart squeezed painfully in his chest.

"Beth…" Zan forced out, working hard to move his hand close enough to touch her. If he could touch her, he'd be able to tell if she was dead. He'd be able to heal whatever they'd done to her. If he could only just _reach_ her –

"Ah ah ah," Jenny's cheerful voice scolded. One delicate, booted foot appeared in front of him, blocking his view of Beth. Zan twisted his face upward again, eyes adapting to the motion just as slowly as they had before, and Jenny's face swam into focus.

She was older and cleaner than he remembered, and both the heavy make-up and the wild look she used to wear had virtually disappeared, replaced by a sedate, easily over-looked style he'd seen on a bunch of middle-class kids in the city. It was a far cry from the little girl he'd last seen with badly bleached hair wearing a vivid red tube-top, but Zan could still see a little of the mania hiding in her grin.

She held something up, moving it too quickly for Zan to pick out more than a blur of black. "Can't have that, now, can we?"

He heard a click, and a wave of blinding green light ran over him. Zan groaned and rolled away, head throbbing and seeing white.

"Fuck." Zan hissed, one hand inching up to cover his eyes. It was getting a little bit easier to move, to talk, but his head was still swimming and every muscle in his body trembled. He just wanted to sleep…

Except Jenny was standing there, and Beth was lying senseless on the floor beside him, totally defenseless. Not that he was in much better shape, but that didn't mean he was okay with just checking out and letting the psycho do whatever she wanted without some kind of fight.

"This is called a trithium amplification generator." Jenny smiled, waving the little black thing in front of him to catch his attention. Zan blinked, turning an unfocused glare in her direction. Out of the corner of his eye, a large dark silhouette moved over Beth, wrapping something he could only assume was rope around her wrists and ankles. "Which is a fucking complicated name for something that makes a field to keep you from using any of your fancy powers."

Zan blinked and – belatedly – tried to use his abilities. But even though he was vaguely aware that Jenny should be flying backwards now, nothing happened. Zan's eyes closed and his jaw clenched as he realized just how desperate this situation was becoming. Jenny was dangerous and, most importantly, totally fucking _insane_.

"The fuck… do you want, Jenny?" He growled weakly.

Jenny smiled, head cocking to the side and careful caramel curls falling over one shoulder. If you hadn't known her before, you'd never have known it wasn't her natural color – she was a brunette, yeah, but the color was darker and duller than the one she was sporting now.

But then, nothing about Jenny had ever been natural.

"So many things, Zan." Jenny sighed, kneeling down until her face was within a foot of his. Zan was suddenly and ridiculously aware of his lack of strength. He wondered if he'd even be able to fight her off if she reached up and wrapped her hands around his neck. She grinned, and although he was pretty sure what they'd shot him up wasn't making him hallucinate, he still thought for a moment that he was looking at a spider.

Zan heard the rumble of the engine starting up and felt the van shift back and forth as it pulled out of the parking lot, but he didn't take his eyes off of Jenny. He half expected her to move the instant he did – although in this case, any movement _away _from him would make things infinitely better.

She reached down and put her fingers on the waistband of his jeans. Eyes moving to focus on her hand, she gently dragged her fingertips along the skin under his shirt. Zan shuddered, bile building in his throat as his helplessness took on a whole new, disturbing edge.

Jenny looked back up at him and caught a glimpse of his disgust. She smiled, and her gentle caress turned sharp as she dug her fingernails into the skin and scratched her way up to his chest. Her hand came to rest just over his heart, where her nails pushed so deeply he felt the skin split.

"Get off me, you freak," Zan snapped, arms coming up to weakly shove her away. The smile weakened, but didn't slip, and the calm of her expression was somehow a lot more frightening than it should have been. Her dark brown – verging on black – eyes flicked up to meet his.

Zan felt a burst of pain in the side of his face and a sudden, violent twist in his neck as his head snapped sideways. He gasped, dizziness renewed and strength failing.

The bitch had _hit _him.

Again.

"I'm the freak? _Me_?" Jenny scoffed, pushing herself up to her feet. Her boot came down on his neck, painful without being crushing, and Zan would've gasped again if the pressure hadn't stolen his ability to breathe. "You're a fucking alien, Zan. You came here in a fucking starship after you _died_. You were born four years old out of a fucking space egg. So which one of is _really _the freak?"

Her foot pushed down harder, and Zan gasped and clawed pathetically at her black leather boot, but even desperate the drugs drained his strength too much. He couldn't push her off.

When Zan was sure he was one strangled breath away from unconsciousness, she stepped off. He coughed raggedly, choking on the ache and the built-up spit, black still flirting with the edges of his vision.

Zan rolled onto his side and almost threw up. His hands trembled, his heart was pounding, and his tongue felt thick in his mouth. He didn't want to die again – he'd done it twice, and he sure as fuck didn't want to do it a third time. He was _afraid._

And that pissed him off.

Zan hadn't always been the kind of guy to do stupid shit in dangerous situations, but if there's one thing the past few months had taught him, it was that doing _something _was more important to him than doing something _smart._ So, helpless and completely incapable of physically fighting her off, Zan did the only thing he could think of, whether it was stupid or not.

He opened his mouth.

"Fuck ye-yes, you're a freak," Zan hissed waspishly, bruised throat fighting every syllable. "You're a fuck-king psycho. And just 'cause you – you fixed your hair and learned some – _fancy_ new tricks doesn't… doesn't mean you ain't still that sad li-lil' girl pissed off at mommy."

Jenny froze.

Zan tensed, expecting any second for her foot to catch him in the stomach or his throat. Despite everything else that had happened, despite how long it'd been, he still remembered what it'd been like to be in those tunnels, to be completely helpless to the violent, broken moods of a little lost girl.

But when Jenny moved, it wasn't anything like he expected. She smiled down at him, then turned and knelt beside Beth. Zan tensed even further, only then afraid of the consequences to acting when he should've kept quiet. Jenny reached down as she had with him, one hand trailing slowly up along Beth's side. Zan almost snarled something insulting, but he swallowed it back and forced himself to shut up.

When she reached Beth's shoulder, Jenny's fingers followed the curve of it down her arm, slowing to explore the dip on the inside of Beth's elbow and the vein pulsing at her wrist. There wasn't anything sexual about what Jenny was doing, but the whole thing still felt strangely… _invasive_.

"You've always like small girls, haven't you?" Jenny wondered quietly, hand changing direction and slowly tracking from elbow to shoulder, shoulder to hip. "Although I had no idea you were into cougars. I guess it makes sense, though. You would be into something weird…"

"Fuckin' hypocrite," Zan muttered, flinching. He hadn't meant to say it, but now that he had, maybe he could try to get her attention back on _him._ "You're the one that keeps kidnapping guys and beating the living shit out of them. Hate to break it to you, _Jen_, but that ain't exactly normal."

Jenny didn't snap back, the way he'd hoped – she turned to him and smiled, hand still absently rubbing along Beth's side. "Not all guys, Zan. Just you."

Zan felt like shuddering; the flirty tone of her voice was beyond disturbing. But he knew she'd enjoy that, so he hid his reaction. "Oh, right. Yeah. That's _totally_ normal then."

Finally, a spark of the irritation he'd been expecting. "You're really fucking mouthy for a guy in your position."

Something about the way she'd said that – or maybe the way her nails were visibly digging in to the skin at Beth's waist – made Zan decide to cool it down a notch. "You gonna kill us?"

Jenny shrugged, standing up just as the van hit a bump. She wobbled, but kept upright and finally stepped away from Beth's unconscious body. "_You_, yeah. I mean, even if I wasn't getting paid, I'd do it_. _But her…" Jenny stepped up next to the big guy, who'd quietly perched on a freakishly little built-in chair behind the driver's seat, where Zan realized yet another of Jenny's crony's was at the wheel.

Jenny smiled. "Nicky wants her. Did you know that? He thinks she's important or something. I don't really get it, to be honest; she doesn't look like much..."

Zan blinked slowly, completely lost and not willing to show it. Jenny didn't so much as glance in his direction. "But Nicky's pretty smart. If he thinks she's important, then there's probably _some _reason. She could be fun to play with, anyway."

Zan looked back at Beth, and for the first time since he'd been drugged he saw clearly enough to note the trail of blood from her nose down along her cheek. The phantom feeling of damp stone and piping behind bound wrists made him shiver. "What the fuck did you do to her?"

* * *

><p><em>It'd been months since the last time she'd stood face-to-face with Michael, and even longer since the last time she'd seen him for anything other than business. But over the years Michael had gotten much better at subtlety, and somehow he'd found out just how badly she'd been overworking herself, and he'd made it impossible for her to ignore his 'suggestion' about taking a break. <em>

_ "It's good to see you." Liz said with a smile, taking a sip of the coffee, totally unsurprised by the bitter stroke of heat that shot down her throat. Michael never drank anything with more substance than water without adding something alcoholic. "Although the armed guard was definitely overkill." _

_ "Thought that might get your attention." Michael snorted. He made no pretense about his drink; whiskey straight out of the flask at his hip. The top was twist on, but he'd had years to figure out how to hold it and open it one-handed. Even now he did it the same way, despite the fully-functional chrome prosthetic attached at his shoulder. Liz's eyes strayed to that arm, taking in the details that spoke of mixed human and Antarian technology. She had enough experience with mixing the two to know how impressive that was. _

_ "I like the arm," Liz nodded. He'd refused for years to get one, spouting out rhetoric about how people needed to be reminded of what Kivar's rule really cost them. But he'd been changing lately; Liz had heard about his new policies even half-way across the planet. "Very terminator." _

_ Michael grinned, and there was a spark of boyish glee in his eyes that stole Liz's breath away. She hadn't seen him looking so carefree since before Maria d –… Since Before. "I know, right? I'm thinking of doing a whole theme thing. Arm everybody with a bunch of old-school Earth machine guns, maybe get a glowing red optic implant. Scare the shit out of those pansy-assed House pets, probably." _

_ Liz blinked, imagining for a moment what the reactions of the visiting Antarian nobility would actually be when faced with a Rebellion based off of an '80's sci-fi flick, then just shook her head with a tolerant smile. She knew he was joking; he'd never do something so crazy, even if it fit his sense of humor to a T. _

_ But no matter how ridiculous the subject, it was good to see him smile._

_ "You look happy." She said quietly. Michael glanced at her, eyes losing a little of their spark and cheeks flushing pink. Liz stared, mind noting the odd expression and working to remember where she'd seen it last. Michael opened his mouth to reply, but Liz cut him off – a sudden, vivid memory of Maria telling her about sleeping with Michael for the first time, right around the time he was supposed to have gone back to Antar. Maria had glanced at Michael over the counter, and when he'd caught her smirking at him he'd blushed … _

_ "You slept with someone!" She blurted, and the little touch of red exploded. _

_ "What – I didn't, you –" Michael stuttered. Looking thoroughly embarrassed, he scowled. "Shut up! You don't know what the hell you're talking about..." _

_ "You did!" Liz grinned, instantly transported back to her teenage years. "Who was it? Do I know her? Oh, god, _please_ tell me it's not Eloise, cause that's just –"_

_ Michael flinched, staring at her like she'd just waved a dead baby at him. "Jesus, Liz – I'm not sleeping with Eloise! She's too old for me anyway – and I'm pretty damn sure she's got a thing for Maggie." _

_ "Sleep…. ing?" Liz caught. She hesitated. "Like… an ongoing thing?" _

_ Michael looked at her for a second, the overblown annoyance easing back. The corner of his mouth quirked down and he quickly looked away. _

_ "Is it…" Liz ventured, unsure of her welcome. Michael was still staring at the floor. "… Serious?" _

_ His head whipped back up, eyes wide and hand reaching out as if to freeze her in her place. "No! I wouldn't – I mean, it's just… It's not like that." _

_ Liz stared. He was acting… almost guilty. _

_ "Michael… it's okay if it is." She said, watching the subtle flinch by the corner of his eye as looked away from her again. "Maria would want you to be happy."_

_ Michael snorted. _

_ "Okay, so." Liz muttered, shrugging. "She'd expect a suitable grieving period first. But, Michael… it's been eight years. Even at her most dramatic, Maria would never have wanted you to spend the rest of your life alone." _

_ Slowly, Michael's eyes slid back toward her face. She smiled sadly at the misting of tears there, feeling an echoing pulse of grief. He looked away again, hand making a quick swipe of his eyes. _

_ "Do you love her?" Liz asked, then immediately wondered if she shouldn't have. But Michael just smiled sadly at the floor. _

_ "Not like I loved Maria." _

_ Liz nodded. After a long, pensive moment spent in silence, she cleared her throat. "Your coffee sucks ass, by the way." _

_ Michael snorted a laugh. _

_ Liz smiled. Logic cut in, and she remembered one of the reasons she'd agreed with his little "invitation". _

_ "Have you decided who you can spare?" She'd discussed it with him in code on a hijacked Antarian server a few weeks before. Truth was, she was getting to the point in her little project that she was going to start needing help. Oh, not a lot of help – just enough to speed up the basic coding and smaller hardware assembly. It would still be at least another few months before she started on construction of the actual machine – and for that, she just needed a couple Skins skilled enough with their abilities to put things where she wanted them. _

_ While Liz could, in theory, handle it all by herself, it would be a lot safer for everyone involved if she could finish it on a smaller time-frame. The less time she spent smuggling crap into her warehouse, the fewer opportunities she had to be spotted by some Antarian rat or rogue SkyNet camera. _

_ She'd figured Michael could loan her Serena or Jacob or someone for the duration of the project – she'd have loved to get Ava, but as one of the Four she wasn't a player Michael could afford to lose. _

_ "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that." Liz frowned and crossed her arms, refusing to let their shared pain keep her from fighting for what she needed. Michael leaned back against his desk, posture relaxed and eyes focused on the door. _

_ "Liz… we have a traitor." _

_ Her indignation vanished. _

_ "What?" Liz muttered, stepping closer and lowering her voice as if a spy might be hiding behind the potted plant. It was ridiculous – this office was probably the most protected room on the planet, apart from those belonging to Kivar himself. It was constantly scanned for hidden life forms, abnormal brain waves and unregistered equipment. No one would hear anything in this room that they weren't freely told. "Are you sure?" _

_ "About six months ago we found one of Kivar's hidden POW camps. We were going to sneak in, get the captives, and sneak back out – less satisfying than a firefight, but with most of those people being civilians, probably starved and tortured… we just couldn't risk it._

_ "It took us almost four months to plan. The only people I told about it had to know; either they were going to go in with me or they were going to supply the distraction or they were going to smuggle out the refugees. In total, it was about fifty people, and most of them only know bits and pieces." Michael looked down, jaw clenching and biting savagely at his bottom lip. _

_ "It was a fucking ambush, Liz. All the captives had been moved days, maybe even weeks in advance. Dave, Morelli, Sorenson… almost everyone I brought in with me were killed pretty much immediately. I… I remember actually thinking, fuck, this is it, you know? I thought, if Max were here, maybe… "_

_ Michael pushed off of the desk abruptly, pacing to the other end of the room, metal arm glinting. "Thirty-six people went in, and six of us got out. Which means there's about fourteen – maybe twenty people who might've told somebody we were coming. Twenty people I trusted – twenty people _we all _trusted completely." _

_ "It wasn't necessarily one of them." Liz supplied, wanting to be comforting. Except that when her mind followed that particular line of logic, it only got worse. "They could've… told someone they trusted."_

_ Michael smiled, but there was nothing carefree or childlike about it now. It was a sharp smile, filled with old bitterness and new rage. "As happy as I'd be to just have one stupid asshole close to me instead of a mole, that wasn't the only thing that happened. Things came up missing, stupid routine shit went wrong, and half our operations failed. I couldn't afford to alienate twenty people that high up in the Rebellion by openly questioning their loyalty, so instead I started weeding them out – giving them separate orders, different projects and whatever so that I could see which group had the highest number of incidents. _

_ "Whoever it was has been catching on, though, because the closer I get to the bastard the more mixed the reports get." Michael looked back at her, his expression a curious mix of anger and apology. "I'm going to get this guy, Liz, but… I can't –"_

_ "You can't give me anyone." Liz blurted, comprehension hitting her like a freight train. She stepped backwards until her shoulders hit the wall, and then let her head fall back and her eyes slide closed. "Hah. That's just great." _

_ "I want to help, Liz, you know I do," Michael muttered. "But if this Rebellion fails, if we really lose this, then… you're our back up plan, Liz. We can't risk you being compromised."_

_ Liz nodded, throat aching. She could already feel herself pulling away – cutting back on the support work and the smuggling side jobs... cutting off ties with anyone but those she knew she could trust. Which… well, when it came right down to it that left only Michael and Kyle. She loved Isabel, and every day she prayed her sister-in-law was safe and still herself, but the longer she was around Kivar the more Liz wondered if her control could hold. _

_ She thought of suggesting that to Michael – that Isabel might be the spy – but discarded the thought immediately. Liz was his best friend now, but Isabel was _blood_, and there's no way Michael would listen to anything said against her. And besides, Liz was pretty sure Isabel wasn't let in on any of the real big projects, just in case. _

_ Months later, after Isabel had been executed and Liz had realized how deeply she'd betrayed her friend for ever doubting her, Liz thought back on that moment. She hadn't been truly worried about the spy until Kyle told her Michael had left a letter saying he'd 'dealt with the problem'. Liz had known, with the same abject certainty that she'd known the War was lost the moment Max died, that it was a lie_.

_ The traitor had broken Isabel's cover – maybe even months before. And Kivar had strung her along, playing the part as long as he had to, and then when Michael had been moments away from finding his mole, he'd given up the game. He hadn't had any reason to keep Isabel around if her continued safety was no longer protecting his spy. _

_ But then Michael had cracked and made his suicidal charge on Kivar's palace, leaving the spy with an unexpected opportunity. Michael had played his cards close to the chest, and nobody knew who it was he suspected. So all the spy had to do was plant a note, play clueless… and stay under cover. _

_ Liz had figured this all out in her head and told Kyle, but he'd felt betrayed by her own refusal to back the Rebellion. He assumed her theory was just another rationalization – that she was looking for excuses not to help. And when there were no 'incidents' or other ambushes in the next several months, he'd counted it as proof. _

_ A part of Liz had been driven to find the one who'd done it, but the rest of her knew she couldn't afford to. The longer it took her to finish her machine, the more likely it was she'd be caught. She didn't have the time to chase down spies. _

_ And at night, when the guilt hit her… she told herself it didn't matter. _

_ If she succeeded, none of it would happen anyway._

* * *

><p>It'd been a long time since Liz had last been knocked out telepathically, but it was familiar enough that she knew immediately that that's how it'd happened. A spot deep between her eyes pulsed sharply, bringing automatic tears and a roiling nausea. She swallowed and desperately tried not to move until the immediate effects wore off.<p>

The ground under her lurched, and Liz let out an involuntary groan as the knife in her brain twitched. For a split second, she thought she'd imagined the motion – that maybe the mental attack that had put her under had also somehow thrown off her equilibrium. But then the faint smell of gasoline and the gentle hum of an engine registered in her mind.

Liz felt an instant's tension that she just as quickly let fade; it was unusual for her to wake up anywhere she didn't intend to be, and instinct told her to let them think she was still unconscious. Fear and adrenaline helping her to focus despite the pain, and soon she could make out people breathing – more than she could easily separate from sound alone, but obviously not many if they all fit in one car.

The memory of who'd attacked her didn't resurface immediately, and for a moment Liz just pretended to sleep and thought it over. Was this what happened to all those people Kivar made "disappear"? Knock them out, stuff them in a car, and drive them out to the middle of nowhere for some cheesy, mob-style execution?

Was this what they'd done to Sherriff Valenti?

But… no, that wasn't right; Kivar wasn't on Earth, yet. She'd gone back…

"What the fuck did you do to her?"

Zan's hissing voice was just the jolt she needed; the cold fury struck a spike of worry through her heart, snapping her awake. Zan got angry _a lot _– far more often than was probably healthy, to be honest, and definitely more often than Max ever had – but the last thing they needed right at this moment was Zan thinking with his rage. He didn't make good decisions in that mode, and if the situation was really as dangerous as she felt it was, then him being all snarly wasn't going to endear their captors to –…

Liz's heart stopped.

_This is the moment, isn't it? This is the moment everything changes._

Liz prided herself on being rational, but the moment the thought entered her head she knew it was right. She felt _different_ – there was a kind of odd, soft static dancing along her skin, standing hairs on end. Nobody needed to tell her what it meant; the knowledge was already there, carved in stone in the very pit of her stomach, unasked for and unwanted, but beyond denial or doubt.

This was why she was still here. Why Zan was still fated to die.

_If I don't stop it. If I don't _change _it… _

"Jesus, Zan." Somebody replied with mock exasperation. There was an underlying layer of glee that would've made Liz's skin crawl if the voice itself hadn't completely monopolized her attention. "She's fine…"

She knew that voice.

The memories of Liz's parking-lot kidnapping came back with a flash, and the image in her head made her heart stop. It didn't make any sense. It wasn't possible. There was just no fucking way -

"Besides, she woke up like five minutes ago. _Chill_."

No longer having any reason to hide being awake, Liz let her eyes slide open and came face to face with betrayal.

"No…" Liz whispered, and for a second she was caught between wishing for a moment that she was more like a normal person – that in moments like these, she wouldn't instantly understand the horrible truth behind the fractured clues – and that her nearly supernatural instinct for finding things that didn't fit had been strong enough to see it sooner. But it didn't matter what she wished; the final piece of the puzzle stood before her, and the big picture was visible years too late to matter.

Michael hadn't told her who he was seeing, but he hadn't had to. Liz knew them _both_, and just because Michael hadn't been ready to tell anybody, didn't mean his new lover felt the same. That alone wouldn't have been enough for your average spy to get a hold of confidential information, but this one had been a master of Altarian tech… and if she'd been sleeping with Michael, it wouldn't have been hard for her to gain access to rooms where Michael had met with his generals.

It shouldn't have been enough for Liz to put the pieces together, but it was. She _knew_, the way she'd known when Zan died or when Kyle told her about the letter_. _

"Serena," Liz whispered from her spot on the floor, words perhaps too soft to reach the woman standing before them. It didn't matter, though; Liz wasn't talking to this girl. She was talking to the one who – a decade and a half down the line – would insinuate herself into the Rebellion and help to kill all the people who called her friend. "What the hell did you do?"

"Excuse me?" Serena looked Liz up and down with a curious expression on her face. "We met, old lady?"

"You betrayed us." Liz growled, tears making her vision swim. "We thought you were our friend – our _ally_! But the whole time you were working for Kivar?"

Serena blinked, and then her face twisted. "Why the fuck do you care who I work for? I've never met you, bitch."

Liz didn't pay any attention. "What did he promise you, _Serena_? Power? Money?" Liz laughed, but there was nothing happy in the sound. "You really think he's going to give it to you? Are you really that _stupid_? Kivar won't give it to you, and if he does, it won't be anything he can't take away! To him, people like you are just _dogs_ –"

The hit came from nowhere, and instantly Liz was plastered against the side of the van, shapes dancing in front of her eyes. She groaned.

"Don't talk to me like you know me," Serena snarled, eyes gone wild. "I don't work for nobody, aight? 'Specially not some rich alien prick with a stick up his ass."

"Then why…" Liz whimpered, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "Why'd you do it?"

"… You mean, why'd I grab your sorry asses back at the hotel?" Serena asked. Liz said nothing; that was one of the things she wanted to know, and the only question this version of Serena was capable of answering. Serena waited for a second for some kind of response, then shrugged, face suddenly losing its irritation and settling on something almost pleasant.

"Cause it's _Zan_."

Liz frowned.

Serena smiled, turning to face Zan and ignoring Liz entirely. "You probably don't know this, Zan, but I'm actually grateful for you."

Zan sneered. "Obviously."

Serena ignored the sarcastic response. "Before you came along, I was just this pathetic kid – lowest on the fucking food chain. And then you healed me, and I changed. Now suddenly I'm this badass alien-human hybrid, and there's nobody in the world that can push me around anymore. I was weak, and you made me strong."

Liz glanced at Zan, completely lost by the weird turn of conversation, but Zan's gaze was locked on Serena.

"You have no idea how much that meant to me, Zan. I tried to thank you, to make it up to you somehow, but it's like the more I did the more you just looked down on me, the less you wanted me around.

"I looked at you guys, and for the first time I saw what you were capable of. But you weren't doing anything with it. You were wasting it. You're a King, Zan – a motherfucking King, and what are you doing with it? Babysitting a bunch of super clones who would've been just fine without you? Hell – if it wasn't for you, Lonnie woulda been living in a fucking penthouse somewhere, pulling cons and living it up! Ava probably would've gotten picked up by some social worker, and with those pretty big eyes and her little girl face she would've been adopted by some rich family in the 'burbs in a fucking second. Even that moron Rath would've made bank in the mob or fixing races or whatever.

"But _no_, King Zan won't let them. _People are watching_, he says, _we can't let them know we're different_, _or they'll strap us to a table and dissect us_. Big, brave King Zan, scared of all the little hairless monkeys."

Zan's ears were red, the scowl on his face quickly approaching explosive rage. Liz may not understand what the fuck was going on, but it was obvious Zan knew her, and that whatever she was talking about was personal and a pretty painful subject. Liz eyed Zan.

_Don't let her get to you,_ she whispered in her head. _Don't let her make you lose your cool._

Another familiar feeling started building in the back of her mind, but she couldn't really identify it behind the pounding of her headache and the insect itch of the changing time-line on her skin. She briefly wondered if this was her moment to disappear – but Max had had hours after the past changed before he'd gone. Surely she'd have even more time, having been in the past so much longer?

"I learned long before I met you that not all strength is physical. Just because somebody can beat the shit out of you, can leave you hurting and covered in your own piss on the floor, doesn't mean they're in control. If you can hold on to your mind – if you can take everything they can give and still look them straight in the eye and tell 'em to go fuck themselves… That's a kind of power all on its own. And you _don't have it_.

"_That's _what made me hate you. You were _weak_, Zan. You had more power than me, yeah – but you were weak in the only way that really counted. I tried to tell you, to _show_ you what it meant to be strong, but you treated me like something you'd scrape off your shoe! You looked down on me and you tried to control me, like I was one of your obedient little followers, but I had no interest in being your fucking _servant_."

Serena's eyes snapped back to Liz, and the look she threw at the time traveler was full of bitter resentment. Liz looked her in the eye, but her mind was fixed on that familiar feeling, growing stronger every second.

"So you ask why I did this?" Serena bit out. "I do this because I owe it to him. If anybody's going to kill the man that gave me my life and then left me to rot, it's going to be _me_, understand?"

The car was silent, and the look on Zan's face was somewhere between disbelief and a sort of grudging, horrified understanding.

Liz barely noticed.

She went pale, hair rising on the back of her neck in a warning come too late.

"Serena, you have to stop – "

In slow motion Liz watched the metal wall of the van cave in. Metal shrieked, gravity reversed itself, and with a painful _smack!_ Liz hit the ceiling and saw black.

* * *

><p>Zan groaned, prying his face off the floor and looking around. He couldn't see much – he'd landed on his stomach with one shoulder shoved rather awkwardly under his face so that his nose was pretty much to the corner. The corner being between one wall and what had once been the ceiling, it wasn't exactly a place he wanted to be.<p>

Still, with a little wiggling he could see Jenny propped up against the back doors of the van, head bleeding and perfect hair pretty thoroughly ruined. He struggled to push himself up further and spotted Beth, wedged underneath the fallen body of Jenny's goon, who's been launched from his chair and thrown violently into the wall on impact. Neither were conscious.

Zan heard groaning from the front seat – the driver, probably. Unlike everybody else in the van, he'd been buckled in, and had apparently escaped the worst of it. Zan struggled to push himself to up; this was the perfect opportunity to escape. But he was still drugged, and Beth wasn't walking anywhere on her own right now. He had to find that little disk thing and turn it off – then he could heal them both. Jenny had been holding onto it when they hit, so it was probably –

The passenger door – now on the ceiling – slid open. Zan blinked, blinded by the sudden light, and listened to the two solid thumps of bodies landing on the 'floor'. Zan blinked a few more times, trying to force his eyes to adjust.

"Kill them." The voice… that was familiar. The boy they'd met when they'd been invited to the Summit – the one Lonnie called Nicky.

"… What the fuck?"

Zan froze.

_Lonnie?_

"I… I can't." Lonnie muttered, frustrated. "It's not working!"

"_Duh_. There's a tritium field in place, idiot." Nicky snapped. "I gave you a gun for a reason, Vilandra."

"Yeah," Lonnie sneered. "And if you call me idiot again, I'm gonna use it on you, capiche?"

"Just _kill them_ already!"

_Pop. Pop, pop, pop._ Zan gasped, but after a second he felt nothing and Beth's body – still breathing softly and safely hidden behind a now very-dead man.

"… Where's the woman? The one from the tape?"

Zan blinked, glancing at Beth. From where they stood, they probably couldn't see her. Which meant he could either try and do the same – hide and hope they didn't see him until, inevitably, they started looking closer and found them both…

Or he could distract.

Which, to be honest, was preferable for many reasons.

"Why ya askin' me? I just got here, same as you."

"You fucking bitch!" Zan snarled, and the two went quiet. Zan pushed himself to his feet and struggled toward them, but within a couple of steps he was back on his hands and knees, struggling not to blow chunks. He pushed himself a little closer – if they came to grab him here, they still wouldn't see Beth.

Zan looked up, eyes finally adjusted to the light, and he saw his sisters face clearly for the first time since she'd tried to kill him. Against the nausea, against the drugs, and against all the logic in the world, he used all the strength he could muster to throw himself at her.

She shoved at him, but body weight and momentum alone carried him forward. They landed hard, and she lost her breath and struggled pointlessly. Zan got his hands up and wrapped them around her throat, pressing and _squeezing_ as she choked and glared and grabbed at his arms. He could see the hate in her eyes – hatred for him, for the brother she'd left for dead. The brother who loved her…

"How could you, Lon?" He cried, hands still squeezing and tears now running freely. "How could you do that to me? I'm your brother! I'm your brother!"

Her eyes spat venom, showing no remorse or sadness.

"F-fuck… you." She hissed. Zan's face showed his hurt – he could feel it flinching and twisting into an expression of despair – but she wasn't bothered. His sister, his sister, who said she loved him and had spent a life time supporting him at his side. His sister.

His grip slackened. His forehead landed on her collarbone, and he sobbed out loud. She'd betrayed him. She'd wanted him dead, and still did. Her love for him was dead.

What she'd done was evil – unforgivable.

But he couldn't kill her.

Zan wept, and Lonnie struggled to push him away.

And then with speed enough to whistle through the air, the forgotten third party swung something hard down against Zan's skull, and the dead King crumpled, broken on the floor.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> There should only be one chapter left, but seeing as I haven't finished it yet, it may end up longer than that. Nonetheless, I'm hoping you guys want to know what happened.

But because I'm feeling kinda vindictive over only one person reviewing the last chapter, I'm holding it hostage. I'm gonna need at least… idk, five maybe? That's not a lot, guys. Really.

If it helps, how about you guys tell me whether or not you think there should be a sequel?


	21. Chapter 19: Confrontation

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Okay, so… I'm gonna start off with an apology. In my last chapter I used the phrase "the dead King crumpled, broken on the floor." I was referring to the fact that he's technically died – twice – once on Antar and once in New York. He's not actually dead.

So… sorry about that. (:

Also, so many of you guys talked about how the final chapter had to do a lot to be good, so I've been working on making sure it's as good as I can get it. Subsequently, this is the first of a two-parter conclusion, after which there will be an epilogue and a sequel. I've already finished this story, and I've started on the next, so… yeah. Hope you enjoy.

* * *

><p>Liz was <em>really<em> getting tired of getting knocked out.

The copper taste of blood on the back of her tongue helped to bring her back, and she mentally reached out to her link with Zan, still pretending to sleep. The fact that she could manage to do it at all told her that Nikolas's trithium field had disappeared. And she could barely breath.

Liz cracked open her eyes to almost total darkness. For a second she imagined that she'd been buried, and the imagery was so powerful she almost panicked, but then she recognized the sour smell as sweat and the shadows over her eyes became ripples in the fabric of a black t-shirt. One of Serena's bodyguards.

He wasn't breathing.

Liz pushed against the body (corpse?), but she was about a third the size of the guy on top of her and her less than impressive arm strength did absolutely nothing to move him. The idea of being slowly smothered by a weight she couldn't move touched on some of her deeper insecurities, and she shoved and pushed and wiggled to get free. But she was held down as much by the feeling of powerlessness as she was by the weight pressing down on her, keeping her from breathing deeply.

Finally, Liz forced herself to calm down. There was no way she was ever going to be able to push this guy off, and escaping wasn't really working for her. The panicky feeling started oozing back into her thoughts, when she realized – for the second time – that the trithium field was off.

The minute she reached for her power, the familiar, cloying fog of a concussion got in the way. Months ago, before coming to the past, before she'd opened the box in her mind, that would've been enough to leave her hopelessly trapped. But she was stronger now, and with a little focus, she could push _through _the fog and reach what she needed. It was harder, and it took longer, but she forced the body up and away from her.

She opened her eyes and sat up, and only then did she catch sight of a matted patch of blood-soaked hair on the back of the guy's skull, a patch of slick black in the fading light. She blinked, swallowed back disgust, and pushed his hair aside to look for the cause. It was a bullet wound, or something similar. She'd seen enough of them in the war to recognize what they meant, although since guns were the weapon of choice for humans and thus the rebels, she very rarely saw them on anybody she cared enough about to examine closely.

The image of the bullet bursting out his forehead as she lay unconscious underneath him made her eyes widen, and before realizing just how ridiculous it was to care about her appearance at a time like this, she snapped her hand up to check for gore in her own hair. There wasn't any – or, rather, there _hadn't _been. Liz looked down at the old blood smeared across her hands and wrinkled her nose.

"Oh, _gross_."

The feeling of bugs on her skin suddenly swelled, and a hundred little bites stung across her spine, her arms, her feet and her neck. Liz gasped and tensed, but the next moment the feeling had eased back to what it'd been before – a gentle hum in the back of her mind, acting as a steady reminder.

The urgency hit her then; the feeling of time running out was getting worse, and she couldn't count on having more than a few hours before she disappeared. Liz glanced around for her charge, taking in the bodies – all with the same bullet wounds as the body she'd been trapped under.

Zan wasn't here.

But then, she hadn't really expected him to be.

Liz had known the van was going to flip – she had _seen _it happen seconds before the actual impact. She'd known there was will, intent, and _enjoyment _behind it, and that somebody was planning to take advantage of the chaos to grab Zan. She knew that because they hadn't been hit by another car, but by the force of a lifted hand beneath a familiar, grinning face.

_Lonnie_.

And at her shoulder, the childlike grin of Kivar's errant advisor Nikolas.

Liz shoved herself to her feet and forced herself to plan. She had limited time before she disappeared – Max had had a couple of hours after his younger self had seen her in bed with Kyle before he'd vanished, so that was all she could really count on having herself. She didn't really know who all she'd be dealing with, besides Lonnie and Nikolas; Kivar already had a number of supporters on Earth, and she wouldn't put it past Nikolas to use them or maybe even employ human bodyguards with guns enough to be a problem. She didn't even know for sure if Zan was still alive…

She shook her head. Maybe he was dead, maybe not, but she had to operate on the assumption that he was living and breathing with a head full of everything she'd been able to teach him.

Because if he wasn't, nothing she did at this point would matter anyway.

Serena had seen her, years before they were ever meant to meet. The timeline had definitely changed, and whether Zan survived or not now, Liz was going to disappear. That was just a fact, and all she could really do now was hope that this – this _one thing_ – went her way.

Liz looked around and – after establishing that everyone else in the car was, in fact, _dead_ – she started frisking bodies. One of the goons had a gun with a silencer (six shots, no extra ammo) and the other had a butterfly knife in his boot. As she was wearing tennis-shoes, the whole boot thing wasn't an option, so she stuck it in her back pocket and, ignoring the advice of every paranoid veteran who'd told her not to, she stuck the gun between her back and the waist-line of her jeans.

She hesitated before starting her search of Serena, mind unwillingly turning back to a time when she'd thought they were friends. Serena was… had pretended to be this amazing, vivacious person who always backed the little guy and never stopped smiling, even when the war was at its worst. Looking back on it now, Liz wondered if maybe that hadn't been exactly why she was smiling – because things were ultimately going her way.

Liz shook her head; by the time she'd met Serena, she'd put up a wall around herself to keep from having to suffer through losing anyone else close to her. It was what carried her through the hard times, what let her literally watch Isabel be murdered, what let her not respond to the taunting news reports on Micheal's death. And damned if she was going to show more emotion for this traitorous bitch than she had for people she considered family.

Her anger almost made her miss the little box in the dead girl's pocket. Pulling it open to see a short cylinder with wires sticking out the sides and a big red button on the top, Liz grinned. The sonic device was one of Serena's own invention, and wouldn't become popular until after Kivar's occupation began. There were probably a few kinks still in the design at this point, but it didn't matter; even in its earliest stages it made for an excellent distraction.

Having found this – and the earplugs that went with it – Liz was more careful in finishing the search, but she found nothing. Including, she realized with some worry, the trithium amplifier.

Not willing to waste any more time, Liz decided to leave the bodies where they were. She climbed out of the van and used one burst of power to push it right side up. Liz took one moment to breathe and marvel at what she'd just managed, even while concussed. It was insane how much of herself she'd lost by shutting away her visions.

Pushing thoughts of what-if aside, she hopped back in the van and turned the key. She had a split second to worry that something had broken in the crash – that enough had gone wrong that the engine wouldn't turn over…

The engine groaned, tried to start once, twice, three times…

And then it roared to life.

Liz whooped, bouncing in her seat and letting the adrenaline set her hairs on end. She had a car. She had a _car_. Which meant she actually had a shot at catching up to Lonnie and Nikolas.

Liz flipped on the headlights and pulled up to the road as quickly as she dared. The van rocked and squealed now as it drove, but Liz ignored that and focused instead on finding that link she'd been building up with Zan and grabbing hold. It was more difficult to do this with one of the Four – they all had residual shielding from their past lives – but Liz had made a point of building it up so that if something like this were to happen, she could use it.

Liz felt the tug of the link from the East, moving quickly. She hit the gas and prayed.

_Let him be okay. Let me not be too late…_

* * *

><p>By the time Zan woke up, they'd already gotten wherever they were going, and they'd propped him up on a chair in a big grey room and tied him into place. Zan peeled his eyes open and looked at his captor, and for the first time since that night in New York, he felt no rage. Lonnie sneered at him, crossing her arms and looking down her nose at him, displaying all her disgust and rage and sadistic glee, and he felt like he was really seeing her for the first time.<p>

Zan closed his eyes. He didn't feel anything, anymore.

"You look like roadkill, brother."

Zan flinched, but not because of the insult. He opened his eyes to catch Lonnie smiling.

"I bet you're wishing you wasn't breathing right now." Lonnie purred, leaning over and putting one hand down on the armrest of his chair. The other she brought up to brush against his cheek in a mockery of sisterly concern. "My poor, sweet lil' bro. Nothin' ever goes your way, does it?"

Zan watched her. He wasn't really looking for anything in specific; he'd spent months imagining the look on her face when he met her again, contorted in shock, regret... Fear. But as he'd been doing his best to strangle her in that van, the look she'd given him had robbed him of all his hatred and his hope. Her eyes – those beautiful dark eyes that reminded him so much of the eyes she'd had on Antar… they'd been so clear. They'd made it all so painfully obvious.

She wasn't afraid of him.

She didn't care about him.

And he could never make her regret what she'd done to him.

It hurt him more than he'd thought possible. He thought any good feelings he'd ever had for her had been purged when he'd woken up and realized she'd tried to kill him. But if he hadn't cared, why did this realization make him feel so hollow?

Zan glanced behind her. Voice flat, he muttered, "Where's Rath?"

Something like anger flashed in her eyes before disappearing, carefully hidden by the indifferent mask she'd spent so many years wearing in front of him. Weird how it was only now he realized what kind of monster it was hiding, too late to protect himself.

His own temper surged. He hated that fucking look.

"He's dead." Lonnie said easily. "Picked a fight with the wrong girl, y'know?"

Zan blinked, feeling another surprising burst of pain at the news. He scoffed, then sneered, hoping she didn't hear the hitch in his voice. "You killed him, too? God, Lonnie. There anybody who loves you you _won't _stab in the back?"

Her eyes widened, then narrowed as that spark of anger drifted back and caught. Zan was glad; the rage was more dangerous, but the self-righteous sneer was a far cry from the damn mask.

"Stop talking shit, Zan! You never _loved _me, " Lonnie snarled, glaring down at him. "You ain't _got_ loved ones – you just got enemies and slaves who bow to every fuckin' thing you say."

The words mirrored Jenny's, and Zan felt a queasy new fear find a spot deep within his stomach. Was that really true? Did he treat people like slaves – like people he could control? Did he push people to do this? Was this… really all his fault?

Zan shook his head, ignoring the voice. His whole life he'd had questions like that. Like… _where did I go wrong?_ Oh, he hadn't ever thought he'd deserved what'd happened to him – he'd grown up on the streets, after all, and he'd learned early that people with power always had enemies. But Zan had been weak, and his enemies had come into his home and slaughtered his entire family for it.

And Zan had asked himself, do I really have the right to call myself King? How can they trust me, when I've already failed once before? Do they really even want me on the throne?

But he knew himself better than to hold on to thoughts like those. Maybe it was true – maybe he was a failure, and a weakling, and a fool.

But so what?

If they'd wanted a better leader, they should've had the balls to _be _that leader. But they'd just left everything to Zan, so he'd done things his way – he'd done what he thought was the right thing to do, what he'd thought they _trusted _him to do. He wasn't going to regret that.

And he wasn't going to let the woman who'd helped to slaughter her own family make him feel guilty for it, either.

"I loved you." Zan corrected, voice steady and flat. "I loved you so much I never once held what you did to us on Antar against you. I forgave you immediately, Lon, cause you're my sister – my _blood_ – and it didn't matter to me what you'd done in the past."

Zan trailed off, gaze slowly working its way up to meet Lonnie's khol-lined brown eyes. "I loved you, and I trusted you. And you stabbed me in the back not once, but _twice!_ You killed me – you killed your own brother!"

The rage was liquid heat, and Zan embraced it. The sharp edges of the frozen ball of shock he'd been living with since that night in New York were starting to melt.

Zan was snarling now, looking up at Lonnie and losing himself in her betrayal. She started to say something, but he spoke over her, tone brooking no argument and face twisted in a violent expression he'd never before turned on Vilandra.

"You killed me twice for a guy who _used you_ to get to us!" The words came quicker now, from a place only half-unburied after weeks of meditation. "You have no idea, Lon. You don't know what he said when you weren't around – you have no idea how obvious it was to everyone but you!

"He only wants you because it's his only legitimate way to my fucking throne!"

Eyes wide and mouth agape, it took Lonnie only seconds to pull out of her surprise. But in his entire memory of this planet, he could never remember a time when she'd looked so stricken. And there, at last, he found a little of that satisfaction he'd pictured himself feeling when he confronted her. It was bitter and small, but it was worlds better than the agonizing pain of facing her indifference.

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about," she hissed. "He loves me. He loves me, and you couldn't _stand_ that I cared about anybody other than you, so you tried to push us apart! You ruined _everything_!"

Zan watched her fume for a second, then smirked. "_I _pushed you apart? They've known where we were for the last twenty or thirty years, Lon. If he loves you so much, why the fuck are _you still here_?"

Lonnie clenched her jaw and fists, glaring so hard he half expected her gaze to bore holes in his skin. After a moment, her eyes started to tear and she turned away from him. She'd always come to him when she was hurting or scared on Antar, but in all their time on Earth she'd never once let him see her cry.

Which probably should've been another sign of how broken they'd become.

"I hate you." Lonnie hissed, and despite all she'd done to kill his feelings for her, the words still tore at him a little. "I hate you so much… I must've pictured killing you a thousand times.

"In my mind, I watched you burn. I drowned you, I stabbed you, I shot you over and over and over. You're like a prison warden – just being around you makes me feel like I'm locked away, rotting in the dark because you won't let me go."

Lonnie turned again, eyes dry and cold.

"It's your fault we're not together, Zan. You and Father – you kept us apart when we could've been together, and all this time we've spent alone is because of you. Every moment I've lost with the man I love is _your fault_!"

Her eyes were wild, teary and huge, and the hands fisted tight at her side were white-knuckled and shaking. Her whole body was shaking, in fact, and had he not known all he did about Kivar and his motives, he might've actually felt guilty for her obvious pain. But instead the sight gave him the final piece of the puzzle he'd been putting together over the last decade, and Zan realized something he should've figured out in those last days back on Antar.

She was insane.

Completely, totally _out of her fucking mind_.

How was he supposed to argue with someone like that? How do you even talk to somebody so lost within their own delusion that they can't see what's really happening? That they can't face the truth – can't even hear it? It was pointless. Like fighting windmills, or maybe windmills fighting back.

But Zan wasn't about to give up without trying.

"He was using you." Zan said carefully, pronouncing each word slowly and with as much volume as he could get without screaming. "Didn't you hear me? He expected to be the Second, and when Rath became Second instead, he immediately put in a petition to have him removed. When Father made it clear that was never going to happen, he started sneaking around with you, making sneering comments to his little fan club about how easy it would be to win you, and how marrying you would give him the title he deserved."

Lonnie shook her head. "Shut up. You're _twisting _things –"

"You were his ticket to royalty!" Zan snapped. "If he got you to marry him before your marriage to Rath went through –"

Lonnie clutched her hands around her ears. "Shut _up_!"

" – officially be made Second –"

Lonnie shook her head harder, knuckles going nails digging into the soft skin of her scalp. "No!"

" – my Heir, so he could kill me and be King!"

"I said shut the fuck up!"

"You're his fucking meal ticket, Lonnie! That's all you ever were!"

Lonnie launched herself at him, punching him once across his cheek with surprising force. The next one came from the other side, and since he'd turned that direction after the first hit, it got him straight in the nose – shooting sparks across his vision and a wave of pain across his face. He heard the crack of his nose breaking and felt an actual twinge of fear; Lonnie wasn't backing off, and her fists were hitting him from every angle. There was no skill to any of it, but enough strength that he knew she must be drawing on her rage.

Zan jerked at his arms, but they wouldn't come free, and as the desperation mounted he instinctively reached out and _pushed_.

Lonnie flew across the room, hitting the wall with a solid, meaty _clap!_

After a few quick, hurried gasps of air, Zan realized what this meant. He reached back into the ropes around his wrists, digging deep into the molecules there and –

A wave of green washed over him.

Zan blinked, senses losing touch with the rope as his abilities were once again forced into a quiet submission. He forced his head around to look behind him at a part of the room he hadn't been watching; the Skin was there – Nicky or whatever his name was – with a couple of other people he didn't know. One was a fat guy wearing a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, and the other was a pimple-faced girl wearing a band uniform. Zan blinked.

In Nicky's hand was Jenny's little black device.

Nicky smirked. "What'd I tell you about playing nice with your brother, Vilandra?"

Vilandra, still slumped against the wall across the room, sobbed.

Nicky's grin dropped. He stared at her, looking as shocked as Zan would've been if he'd walked in on this scene a year before. He turned to Zan, then, mouth twisted into a mocking impression of respect. "My, my. You really did a number on her, didn't you? You have to tell me how you did that –"

"Fuck off, pipsqueak." Zan interrupted with a sneer.

Nick stared, then sneered right back. When he spoke, it was to the two people behind him, though he kept his eyes on Zan. "Take her somewhere until she calms down, will you?"

They nodded and made their way across the room, picking up a limp, still-sobbing Vilandra and dragging her back through the door they'd come in from. Nick waited in his place for a second, then slowly made his way over to a spot directly in front of Zan.

Zan frowned. "What the hell do you want?"

"Oh, so many things." One corner of Nicky's mouth quirking up even further, twisting his face with a supreme sort of arrogance. He leaned down to get eye-to-eye with Zan, and smiled. The look was mischievous and malicious, and if he'd been the kid he looked to be Zan would've expected some kind of taunt or prank. But on this Skin (who Vilandra said they'd known in their past life, even if Zan still barely remembered him) it looked… dangerous.

"But right now, I'll settle for everything you know about the woman who saved your life."

Zan started to protest, but Nicky wasn't waiting for him to talk. He reached a hand up, burrowed his fingers into the clone's hair, and _dug_ into his mind.

It was like acid, like blades coming in at all angles and twisting, curling molten metal. Pictures flashed through his mind, one by one, as his captor searched and sorted and _ripped_ deep into the core of him.

Zan screamed.

In the deepest corner of his mind, the two remaining doors slammed wide open.

* * *

><p>In California, Ava dropped her drink and damn near passed out on the dance floor.<p>

Damien caught her and practically carried her back to the bar, where he propped her up on a stool and started asking questions. Ava didn't hear him – or, no, that wasn't accurate. She wasn't listening to him, despite the obvious concern in his voice and the way his hands were fluttering over her, checking for fever or injury or any reason at all for her near-collapse.

Ava's attention was focused inward.

Since she'd accidently killed her first crush, Ava had practiced with her abilities as little as possible. Because of that, she'd spent almost no time within her mind since she was young, and so she'd never really noticed the link that had slowly formed between her mind and Zan's. But now – months after she'd _watched him die_ – she felt his mind reach out to hers.

With only a second's hesitation, she reached back.

He was captured, and hurting, and calling out for help. Ava latched on to him, picking up a vague idea of some kind of mental attack so savage and powerful that timid Ava almost retreated on instinct alone. But she fought off that reaction and reached deeper instead, reaching one little piece of herself so far into his mind that she was facing his aggressor head on. She spread that piece of herself thin and wrapped it around Zan's mind, protecting him from the prying fingers of his enemy's energy.

It wasn't permanent – in fact, Ava could already feel herself caving under the pain of the attack. But Zan was learning quickly. He copied her movement, reaching out and pushing against the intruder first weakly and then with building confidence, and before Ava was thrown out herself she felt the sheer _power_ behind his defense – power she'd seen in him before, that she'd always known she would never emulate.

But his push wasn't in just one direction – Zan didn't have the control for that – and so it didn't just push back on his attacker. Ava didn't fight it, didn't let him waste his strength on her when he had such a major threat to deal with. She let the force of it shove her out of his mind and close the door behind her.

And just before it shut completely, she put her proverbial foot in the way.

Her eyes snapped open, and she slid off the barstool with more force than she'd intended. Damien caught her, but she pushed him aside and rushed for the door.

The cool night air hit her face hard enough to bring tears to her eyes, but she blinked them away and looked for the familiar red convertible. They'd parked down the street a ways away, and Ava made for the car with all the speed she could muster in four inch heels.

"Hey!" Damien called, chasing after her. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know." She called back without slowing. "But I'm taking your car."

Damien stopped for a second in shock, then took off after her again. "You're _what_?"

"I'm taking your car!" She said louder, then pulled open the driver's side door and climbed inside. Belatedly, she realized she didn't have the keys, but desperation had her using her powers to force the issue. The car sputtered to life, and Damien was so shocked he stumbled.

"What…"

Ava put her foot on the brake, put it into drive, and hesitated. She turned to the man – the _boy_ – who'd shown her what could have been. What life would've been like for her if she was normal, if she was human. The boy who'd shown her what it was like to be loved.

Too bad she couldn't love him back.

"Goodbye, Damien."

"What?" Damien sputtered. "Wait! What's going on?"

"I'm sorry!"

Ava took her foot off the gas and floored it.

"Ava!" Damien yelled, running after the car. Ava watching him shrink in the review mirror, trying not to feel guilty for abandoning the only guy who'd ever really been good to her. She blinked and turned back to watch the road, blinking back tears. "Ava! Ava!"

The guilt came back, but Ava ignored it. Damien was a good guy, but he was also flakey and sweet and incredibly easy to distract. He'd get over her in a week.

Hopefully.

Ava swallowed, but the uncertainty didn't kill her determination. Maybe someday she'd come back and see him – explain things more clearly, make him understand why she'd had to… why she'd had to go. But right now, no matter how sad it made him, she wasn't going to change her mind.

Her grip on the steering wheel tightened until the leather creaked.

She'd let Zan die once. It wasn't going to happen again.

* * *

><p>The sudden surge in the connection between her and Zan nearly sent Liz off the road. But she kept going, leaving skid marks and the van's license plate (knocked loose in the crash) behind her as she drove into the night.<p>

Liz knew the pain he was feeling. Oh, she'd only ever been under it for a couple seconds, but that had been enough to sear the experience into her mind and give Nikolas enough time to pull more information from her head than she'd ever wanted him to see.

And now he was doing it to Zan.

Liz clenched her teeth, feeling the distance between her and Zan closing in her mind. They'd been mostly avoiding big cities, and the little town they'd decided to crash in this time was right next to a lot of open country. It took her almost twenty minutes of driving before she found the turn that probably led to where he was being kept – a big, empty expanse of grass already turning grey in the dark. The only thing to suggest anything might be there was the fence surrounding it.

The wire fence was topped in barbed wire, and there was electric line running along the bottom. The actual turn in was blocked by a padlocked gate with cameras. They would've been hard to spot in the daylight, but the wire and glass caught the van's headlights and flashed.

Liz cursed quietly and drove past. What felt like an eternity went by before Liz was far enough from the cameras to feel safe. She pulled the van off the road, parked it right up against the fence, and got out.

There was really only one way Liz could see pulling this off, and since the fence was a good seven feet tall, it wasn't likely to be comfortable. Liz climbed up the hood of the van, and then onto the dented roof and – after double checking to make sure she had everything she needed – she ran and jumped.

She picked up her legs in mid air, but even then she felt the edges of the barbed wire ghost along the denim of her jeans. There was something unnerving about feeling gravity pull you down and not really being able to see the ground beneath you. Oh – it was there, and she could see about how far away it was, but that didn't erase the little feeling telling her it wasn't actually there.

Liz straightened her legs a little, but not completely; if her knees were locked when she hit the ground she would definitely break something. Instead, she hunched her right shoulder forward and ducked her head down. The landing sent a recoil through her legs and knees, trying to force her lower body to compact. She used the momentum of it all to pitch forward, throwing herself towards the ground to lessen the damage. She hit the ground and rolled, letting the energy expend itself with the movement instead of painful force.

She ended up flat on her back, gasping and calling herself every kind of stupid. Liz had always been a tough woman, but it was more a strength-of-will kind of thing then any physical power. Unfortunately, physical strength was exactly what she needed right now, so Liz ignored the protests of her knees and forced herself to stand straight up.

It hurt; she'd strained every muscle below her waist in that move, and probably even pulled a muscle or two. But nothing was broken, so she gave herself a second to stretch and, after grumbling silently to herself for a bit, forced herself to keep moving. It was hard to navigate in the dark, and Liz almost tripped over hidden rocks and dips in the dirt more than once.

Another five minutes passed, and Liz finally stood where Zan should be. There was nothing around her but grass though, and nothing above her but a dark, star-studded sky, so obviously he was underground somewhere. Feeling like an idiot for not thinking of the possibility sooner, Liz stifled a scream and started looking around for some kind of entrance. She would've just looked mentally, but she didn't have the same evolutionary advantage as Zan – her brain wasn't set up to sense and define her surroundings on a molecular level.

She couldn't scan _three feet_ away from her body, let alone far enough to make a difference.

The bugs on her skin came back; a stronger pulse that eased just as quickly as the last, but this time the baseline it returned to was noticeably stronger than the last. Liz almost stumbled, and when the feeling receded she stood for a second, completely paralyzed with indecision. She had no _time _for this! What if she went one way when she should've gone another, and lost any chance at finding the damn door? What if she wasted all her time scrambling for a trap door in the dark, and Zan ended up dead? What if she…

Liz cocked her head.

_What the hell is that? _

She could see a triangular shadow just barely peaking up from behind the hill a couple dozen feet to her right. She'd thought it was a rock at first, but the edges were too clean, the angle too precise. Liz walked toward it, heart beat picking up speed.

There was a ditch just on the other side of that hill, and hidden out of sight there was a little, rotting shed. Liz slid inside, poking at the floors and the walls looking for some kind of door or lever. Her hip brushed against an old rake hanging from the wall, and with a deep grind of moving metal, a hatch in the corner of the floor popped open.

Liz stepped forward warily and peaked in, but the opening beneath was beyond black.

And on one edge perched an old, rusted ladder.

… _ Oh. Well, that's _totally _trustworthy._

Liz ignored her better instinct and started climbing down. The ladder groaned as it took her weight, and every time she stepped on a new rung, it squealed. Liz wondered just how far down this ladder went, and the image of slipping and falling some insanely deep pit flashed through her mind. She scoffed at her imagination, thinking _why the hell would anyone put a giant pit under a shed?_

And then a rung gave way, and for one split second, Liz was sure she was going to die.

She hit the ground almost immediately, her knees giving way and sending her into a set of metal shelves off to one side. Something lightweight and fluffy bounced off her head, and she kicked an empty bucket before she caught her balance. She reached out and grabbed a bottle of something, and with a ridiculous surge of embarrassment she realized she was in some kind of cleaning closet.

She could see a strip of light on the bottom of a door, and when she got there and twisted the doorknob, it opened without fighting her. She cracked it and looked outside – a hallway stretching off in either direction, one ending in a doorway and the other branching off again, but no people. She glanced backwards, wondering if she should mark this door somehow, but the square of… somewhat lighter darkness above her slid shut even as she watched.

Liz swallowed, then decided it didn't really matter. If she and Zan were in so much of a hurry when they left that they needed an exit strategy, a hole in the ceiling wasn't exactly going to get them out before somebody caught up to them. If they weren't in a hurry, they could find another, easier way.

Liz pulled her gun and crept down the hall, expecting any minute to hear somebody approaching. But she heard nothing, and Liz got to the end of the hallway without any problems. She glanced both directions and, again, saw no one. She took the one heading vaguely in Zan's direction and tried, desperately, to think of some kind of plan.

But really, how was she supposed to plan in this kind of situation?

She was in some secret underground facility, with no map, no allies, and no idea how many people or what kind of security she was facing. It was before the official start of the war, so if she was really, really lucky, this little bunker would be totally empty but for Nik, Lonnie, and Zan.

But if she was going to come out of this on top, she couldn't count on that. She couldn't even count on Zan's help, because who knew what kind of condition he'd be in by the time she found him?

So really… what the hell _could_ she count on?

A big guy in a Hawaiian shirt rounded the corner, eyes immediately locking on her and going wide, and even as he raised a hand up in her direction, she fired.

Well.

Too late for planning now.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> I know things are running a little fast, but I wanted to make sure I finish this before my sudden motivation to write wore off. The next one will be about this pace, but the epilogue will slow down a lot.

Please, please review! I won't take anymore chapters hostage or anything, but I do really love hearing from you guys. Even flames are welcome. Constructive criticism is my favorite, though. (:


	22. Chapter 20: Goodbyes

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: I'm sorry. This chapter is so much later than I meant for it to be. I kept trying to get some of the sequel written, and I've gotten a couple chapters, but then another wave of depression hit me and I haven't really been able to write anything since. I've mostly just been pretty zombie like, working and watching tv and reading and barely talking to anybody for days at a time. Luckily, I got a sweet review from ThatGirlLelani, and it reminded me that, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be posting chapters.

Oh. Also, there will be an epilogue, and for those of you who don't seem to be reading my notes, THERE WILL ALSO BE A SEQUEL!

Sequeeeel...

/SEQUEL COMING SOON!/

~sEqUeL SeQuEl sEqUeL ~

There. Everybody knows I'm working on the sequel now, right?

Enjoy. (:

* * *

><p>Lonnie had thought about escaping her guard-dogs – which wouldn't be all that hard, considering they worked for Nik. He liked to hire brutes; strong silent types who didn't care enough about anything to have an original thought. If she'd wanted to leave, all she'd really have to do was open wide her pretty eyes and lie. But she just… she didn't have the energy for it.<p>

She didn't know where they were going – probably to one of the lower levels, where the Skins lived. They weren't Nik's men – from what Lonnie heard, _they'd_ all been killed in some pathetic show down with those cornball clones in Roswell. But just because they weren't sworn to Nik didn't mean they wouldn't help the asshole hold her prisoner here.

Lonnie almost stumbled at the errant thought.

_Prisoner?_ _They're keeping me here so Kivar can find me… _

Her brothers words echoed off the walls like ghostly taunts. She didn't know what to think about what he'd said. A part of her – the biggest part – insisted he was lying, that he was just trying to hurt her like he always had. But another part, a little, wriggling, poisonous part, thought back on little moments where Kivar had said something or done something that had made her almost wonder…

Lonnie bit her lip hard enough that the pink, fleshy skin of the inside split and her mouth started tasting like pennies. Even if anything Zan had said was the truth, even if Kivar had… had _originally_ pursued her for power, that didn't really change anything. She still loved Kivar with all her heart, and she hated Zan with so much passion that it _burned_.

The things he'd said were like little demons in her brain, whispering lies and cackling at all her deepest insecurities. She wanted to ignore them, to just make them go away, but she'd spent too many years analyzing people's darkest sides, how to defend against them and how to manipulate them, not to acknowledge how _real_ it sounded. It made all too much sense, really, that Kivar would've wanted power. He was a glorious man who deserved to be King, after all, and men as great as he was didn't give up an… an advantage like the love of a Princess.

_But_, Lonnie slowed, head tilted down, _what does that mean for me? All this time waiting, all this time dreaming and hoping and remembering him… was it really all a lie? Is he… never coming for me?_

Just thinking of that left Lonnie teetering on the edge of the void that had been building within her since the moment she'd woken up on this planet alone. She'd known even then that without Kivar, she was nothing. She _had _nothing. He held her heart, he was the other half of her soul, and without him her life – her existence – meant _absolutely nothing_! And that nothingness had grown, inch by inch, year by year, and the only reason she hadn't given in, the only reason she hadn't thrown herself into it and let it take away her pain was because she knew… she'd _trusted _that someday he'd come for her. That someday they'd be together again, the way they were always meant to be.

But… what if he'd never really cared about her? What if he didn't want to be with her – had only wanted her title, and now that he had the crown, now that he'd won it for himself and didn't need her –

Lonnie swallowed, darkness rising on the edge of her vision.

She snarled, a foot-long gouge digging itself in the concrete walls to either side of her. Her bodyguards visibly jumped, then quickly moved a few feet further ahead of her as if distance would really save them from her if she decided to attack.

Lonnie didn't notice.

_No, it can't be true. It's _not_ true. _

_ Kivar loves me. _

_ I _know _he loves me – I can _feel _it! _

_ Zan was just lying! He always lies!_

Except…

Except all the lies he'd ever told her had to do with Kivar. He'd called Kivar a liar and a traitor. He'd told Lonnie Kivar was manipulating her, was using his abilities to… to…

Lonnie shook the thought away, a voice deep in her mind insisting she not think about it.

_ And… even if Kivar doesn't love me the same way I love him, it doesn't matter. I love him. I've always loved him, and if I can just _show_ him how much he means to me, how loyal I've been all these years, he'll love me back. He will! _

The blonde was so deeply lost in her thoughts that, when the Skin ahead of her turned the corner and went rigid, she didn't notice. She almost didn't notice when he suddenly collapsed, and the second guard threw herself back behind the wall. The young girl – or, rather, the woman in the girl Husk – peered forward and reached her palm out, but then jerked back as a soft _pfft _of air passed by.

The sound of something hitting concrete was what really snapped Lonnie back into the present, and when she turned to see a hole a little smaller than her finger in the wall ahead of her, she knew immediately what it was from. Spending eleven years on the streets of New York was more than enough to know what a bullet hole looked like.

Lonnie hit the wall and ducked, silently cursing this day and her life in general. The Skin peeked forward again, and this time her head immediately jerked backwards as the black chlorophyll-equivalent the husk used spit from a hole in her temple, the force of it pulling her to the floor.

Lonnie stayed where she was, breathing so quietly it couldn't be heard even in the silence of the halls. A few seconds passed, and then the end of a gun appeared around the corner, facing down towards the bodies.

A few quick shots, and the Husks crumbled into ash.

The alien-hybrid hadn't exactly enjoyed the day, but she wasn't looking to get shot, either. Lonnie gestured with her fingers, and the gun flew over and hit the opposite wall. Before this mysterious shooter had time to recover, she stepped out of her hiding place – palm forward – ready for a fight.

The shock of recognition that ran through her wiped her mind blank.

Lonnie blinked. "The fuck are _you _doing here?"

The brunette chick – Liz? – had been staring at Lonnie, wide eyed and gaping. When Lonnie spoke, she jumped for the gun, but with a casual gesture Lonnie sent her flying through the air and pinned her to the wall. Trying to think things through enough to figure what the hell was going on, Lonnie walked slowly towards the restrained girl.

"You're supposed to be in Roswell." Lonnie whispered, studying the changes a couple of months had brought the shorter girl. Her hair was cut, colored in streaks, and she was wearing jeans, boots, and a leather jacket. She looked way different from then the preppy little bitch Lonnie had last seen wearing a pastel skirt and heels, but the closer she got the more Lonnie realized the clothes really had nothing to do with it.

This Liz… was older.

Not like, _her eyes looked older_ or any of that other ridiculous shit people said when they were being dramatic, but actually _older_. Her features had lost a little of their softness, her shoulders and hips were a bit broader, and her face sported a couple faint clusters of wrinkles. Laugh lines, frown lines and a couple that turned out to be not wrinkles at all, but very old scars – none of which had been present on the face of the human girl in Roswell.

Stepping closer, Lonnie grinned with a dark fascination.

This… this held promise.

"… Who the fuck are you?" Lonnie whispered, not caring if the girl could hear.

Liz – or whoever this was – lifted the top of her lip and silently snarled. Lonnie ignored her, running through all the possibilities in her mind – Skin? Shape-Shifter? A clone of some type (although, that probably meant this one was the original and the clone was the teenager version in Roswell)? – before something else flew through her mind.

_Zan's life was saved by a _woman.

The picture Max had kept in his drawer of the bitch rose to the forefront of her mind, along with the puppy-dog eyes he'd made at her when he thought nobody was looking. And then this chick, who looked _exactly like _her asshole bro's double's girl, shows up in the exact bunker they'd brought Zan to, carrying a gun and obviously planning to help him escape? There was absolutely no way it could be anybody else. Lonnie didn't believe in those kind of coincidences.

Anyway, didn't it make a certain kind of sense? The idea that her brother could actually love anybody was ridiculous, but Lonnie knew the power of companionship. And two girls with the same face, finding their way into the personal circles of both the clones of King Zan suggested meticulous forethought and planning, by somebody that knew her brother's tastes. Even in their last life, Zan had always had a thing for the small, soulful types.

Obviously, whoever was behind this had set out to get close to both the clones, so that whichever one eventually became King of Antar, that faction (it had to be more than just two people, because giving somebody that kinda power only if the other _failed_ would be a partnership too dangerous for anyone with half a brain) would still have a place at his side. But more importantly…

It implied that if this girl was any good, Zan would care about her.

For the first time since her brother opened his mouth, Lonnie felt the beginnings of control. She had a card to play here, and if she did it right… maybe she could pay Zan back for some of the agony he'd put her through for as long as she could remember. Not all of it, of course – there was nothing she could ever take from him that would equal what he'd stolen from her – but _some_.

Lonnie let the girl drop. Liz – or whatever her name was – gasped as she hit the floor, but the minute her eyes strayed to the gun Lonnie sent it sliding down the hallway, out of reach.

"Make one fuckin' move, bitch, and I'll kill you." Lonnie drawled, enjoying the tension in the Skin's face. "Get up."

She did, very slowly, with a carefully guarded expression.

"What are you going to do with me?"

Lonnie smirked. "I'm gonna take you to see my bro. I'm sure he's just _dying _to see ya."

The older woman stared at her, and for a moment Lonnie was actually a little unnerved. There wasn't any fear on that face, and there should've been; very few families could come up against one of the Four – all of whom were either bred or specially chosen for their power – and _not_ feelafraid.

But after a long moment the brunette looked away, shoulders slumping and body language exuding defeat. Lonnie gestured for her to go first, completely missing the little grin that tugged on the corner of her captive's lips.

* * *

><p>"That all ya got?"<p>

Nik spun, eyes locking on the bloodied, smirking face of the former King, and for a second he was tempted to follow Vilandra's lead and launch himself at the arrogant asshole. Why was it that this man – every version of him – was always such a pain in his ass? King Zan had done everything he could to make Nikolas's life more difficult; passing laws and edicts that robbed him of the rights and privileges he'd earned by clawing his way to the top, spurning any and all forms of alliance between them, and even publically calling Nik a 'backstabbing thief' at court. Of his little reincarnations, Max was by far the most annoying; he'd done more damage to Nik's powerbase on Earth in one day than all his little supporters had done in some fifteen years on this planet.

This Zan's infractions were far less severe, but the mere fact that he'd survived when he was meant to die was more of a failure than Nikolas had ever experienced before. The brat had gone even farther by leading Nik's forces on a merry chase half way across the freaking continent.

And, on top of all of that, the moment Nikolas had the opportunity to find the answers to all the questions that had been plaguing him since he'd seen the security footage outside the bar, the clone had somehow figured out how to produce mental sheilds. Nikolas had spent the last half hour trying, and he hadn't yet been able to find a way passed them.

It was vaguely terrifying how quickly the boy was learning. Back when he'd been the King of Antar, Nik wouldn't have been able to even try this without risking frying his brain, and although Zan wasn't anywhere near that level yet… it wouldn't take much for him to get there. A few months training, tops.

It wasn't fair.

Nik's fists clenched. As a child, he'd grown up knowing he was worthless. His father had four other sons stronger and older than Nikolas to follow him, and he'd made it clear the only thing he wanted from Nik was for him to stay out of their way. Despite all that, he'd clawed his way to the top, and by the end of it Nik and his mother had been the only ones left standing.

He'd been determined to take over his House, and he had. But beloved King Zan had noticed the trail of bodies he'd left behind, and although none of it could be traced to Nik, he'd been determined to make life hard for the up-and-coming nobleman anyway.

_"A man who'd kill his brothers for a title_ _has no place at my court."_

The King had said it in a hissed whisper one night, when Nikolas had finally asked him why he was so hostile. And he'd said it as if Nik's bullheaded brothers had ever cared about Nik, or even about each other. Had they thought for even a second that they could get away with it, they would've killed each other – two of them had, actually, with only a little prodding from their littlest sibling.

And that so-called King, who had had everything handed to him since birth, who was _born _with his freakish talent where Nik had had to fight for every bit of it… Zan, whose grandfather was rumored to have killed his own nephew to keep him from taking his younger son's place as Second, whose ancestors had been slaughtering their own friends and families since the time of the Red Prince…

That bastard didn't have any place to judge him.

Nik suppressed his fury and smiled. "Oh, don't worry. There are other ways to find out the things I want to know. They hurt more, and they take longer, but I've got all the time I need."

The Skin punctuated his point by throwing a punch, very carefully aiming for the point on Zan's nose where the bone had split. The way the former-Kings face went completely white, blood and agony surging anew, was more than enough to bring a smile to his face.

"You see what I mean?" Nik said cheerfully, ignoring Zan's half whimpered curses. "Physical pain may not get anywhere near as… _detailed_ a result as ripping the facts from your mind would, but it's got its own special charm."

It wasn't true, of course. Nikolas would never trust these barbaric methods to get him _accurate _information – people always lied to avoid pain. But one thing most people didn't know about the power of the mind was that it was directly related to the power of the body. Weaken a man, make him hurt and make him tired, and no matter how powerful his mind is, it will follow.

Zan glanced up, glaring at the shorter boy with pure venom. Nik actually really liked the expression; for so many years, this arrogant little brat had ignored him, treated him like wallpaper at best and something disgusting stuck to his royal shoe at worst. And for all the hatred it held, the boy's face was finally acknowledging Nik's power and control in a way the King himself never had.

The hate took on an edge, and Zan smirked tightly, eyes still watering. "Didn't know you had it in ya, Nicole."

Nikolas blinked, then sneered. "Really? You're trying to insult my masculinity? That's the witty diatribe of the former King of Antar?"

Zan shrugged, not at all bothered by Nik's disdain. "What can I say? You remind me of a girl. Must be those soft hands."

Zan blinked, then leaned forward as far as the ropes around his wrists would let him. He grinned at Nikolas, conspiratorial and sharply mocking. "So, be honest, man… your balls dropped yet?"

Nikolas's face purpled, and he pulled back his arm for another swing.

The door slammed open, jerking Nik out of his rage.

Vilandra had – apparently – escaped her escort, and was now walking behind someone (palm out, smile predatory) that Nikolas almost didn't remember. But though the streaked hair and clothes were new, the rebellious sneer brought him right back to Roswell.

Not exactly a reminder he wanted at that moment.

Nikolas snarled, "What the hell is she doing here?"

Vilandra smiled, and all of her earlier heartbreak seemed to have disappeared. She shoved the shorter girl from behind, and Max's girlfriend almost took a nosedive, but she caught herself on oddly shaky knees.

Vilandra shrugged, "She's my brother's bitch."

Nik missed the incredulous frown on the brunettes face, too busy scowling at Vilandra. "Yeah, I'm aware she's dating the Roswell brat. But why is she _here_?"

"That cornball Max ain't my brother." Vilandra snapped. "And this chick isn't that goody-goody bitch from Roswell."

Nikolas blinked, looking again at the little brunette in the doorway. Whatever Vilandra was alluding too, he couldn't see the difference, but a quick glance down at his captives suddenly frantic expression made him hesitate. Zan couldn't see the girl, but obviously their conversation had struck a chord with him…

Nik gestured at Vilandra to bring the short woman closer. The second Zan's eyes locked on the brunette, he snarled, turning violent eyes back on Nik. Nik watched the reaction gleefully; this girl was obviously a weakness, and one that he planned to take full advantage of. How she was involved with _both _of the King's clones…

Well, that was easy enough to find out.

Nik reached out towards her head, too frustrated by this night's events to bother with small talk. The brunette stepped backwards, effectively dodging his hand, but it was a pointless effort; Lonnie was already stepping forward to hold her in place, and there was nowhere for the girl to go. But before Lonnie was close enough to grab the little brat, she tossed Nikolas a look that made him pause.

_Is she actually… _grinning_ at me?_

That was the only warning he would get.

* * *

><p>Liz could've fought back when Lonnie caught her, but the blonde had made it obvious she was planning to take her to Zan as some kind of a hostage. So Liz put her head down, played the helpless little human, and used the time of the walk to try to – yet again – come up with a plan.<p>

The trip was surprisingly quick, but it was more than enough to give her some idea of what she had to do. She was being _brought _to Zan, so finding him was no longer an issue she had to deal with. What she had to do was isolate him long enough to get him awake, moving, and healing himself so that she'd have him at her back on the way out. If she could do that without alerting anyone, even better, but that had to come second. She couldn't carry him out of here, after all.

Her first sight of the room was encouraging; a big, empty space with just Zan (tied to a chair, facing the opposite direction) and Nik (unfortunately not tied down). No cameras, no guards, no corners behind which someone could be hiding.

So it was her and Zan against Nik and Lonnie – or maybe just her against Nik and Lonnie, if Zan was hurt. In case he was, she needed to disable Nik and Lonnie to give her the time she needed to free Zan and sneak him back outside. She didn't know how many other people were in this facility, so it would be a stupid idea to leave anybody standing to set off the alarm.

Lonnie shoved her forward, and Liz's protesting knees almost sent her to the floor. She bit back a snarl and stood patiently, biting back a scoffing response to being called Zan's 'bitch'.

Soon enough Lonnie had her moving forward, and when she saw the blood coating Zan's face she was glad she'd already planned for the worst. She also noticed the look he passed her before glaring at Nikolas, and she ignored it with a silent apology. And then she sent another, quickly, because she already knew he _really_ wasn't going to like what came next.

Nik watched her, and in one smooth motion he brought his hand up toward her head. To see him like that, reaching out to tear into her mind, brought back half a dozen horrible memories from the early days of the war. Days when he'd been a major problem, when he'd made their lives miserable.

Liz grinned.

_You aren't going to like this either, asshole._

She stepped back, gripped the cylinder in her pocket, and hit the switch.

The sonic device was designed to emit an inaudible frequency powerful enough to cause dizziness, nausea, disorientation and a killer headache – and occasionally, a burst eardrum or two.

And when she pressed the button, that's exactly what it did.

Nik shouted and grabbed at his ears, knees hitting the floor hard enough that Liz's own knees twinged in sympathy. Lonnie wrapped her arms around her head and stumbled backwards until she hit the wall, where she slid boneless to the floor and sobbed. Zan – still tied to his chair – made a weird, pained groaning sound and writhed against the ropes; Liz immediately stifled the wave of guilt that tried to get her attention. It was cold and she knew it, but Liz had absolutely nothing on Lonnie and Nik but the advantage of surprise, and if using that advantage meant doing a little damage to Zan in the process…

Well, that was the cost of getting him out of here _alive_.

The pair of protective plugs stuffed in her ears weren't as efficient as they should be – instead of completely blocking out the sound, the way they someday would have, they picked up the sound and resonated with it. The result was sharp, high squeal in her ears that was giving her a splitting pain behind her eyes. She didn't let herself think about it though. She only had so much time before the sound did any permanent damage, so she had to deal with Nik and Lonnie before that point.

Liz flipped open the butterfly knife, slid around to Nik's back and plunged the blade into the Husks binding node. It fell to ash around her fingers, taking the alien within down with it to avoid leaving any existence of an alien presence for humans to find.

Her heart pounded, and Liz didn't breathe for a second. It wasn't her first kill, and the feeling she was experiencing wasn't grief or guilt. The problem was that this was by far the most important murder she'd ever committed, and the implications of it – the things she'd just changed, the problems she'd faced in her own timeline that she'd just erased with one single stab…

It boggled the mind.

Her skin buzzed, and Liz swallowed and pushed it aside.

She stepped through the ashes towards Lonnie, gripping the knife even tighter. The blonde rolled onto her side on the floor, curling up into a fetal position, eyes still closed and oblivious to the brunette's approach. Her delicate face twisted and she moaned in pain...

And for an instant she was Isabel, writhing as Kivar killed her in front of the whole world.

Liz froze. Her hand shook around the metal as her heart struggled with her mind. Dangerous to leave her living, impossible to kill the girl who looked so much like the sister-in-law Liz had loved. Liz hesitated, then cursed and put the knife back in her pocket.

She stepped forward and went to her knees besides Zan's sister. Grabbing a handful of the short, gelled hair, Liz jerked Lonnie's head a good foot off the ground. Lonnie eye's snapped open, but it was too late; Liz used all her arm strength and a good bit of her body's weight to slam downwards.

The liquid _crack_ the skull made when it hit the floor was sickening, but Liz had heard much worse before. She let go of the blonde locks, pulled herself to her feet, and flipped the switch on the cylinder back into the _off _position.

The noise stopped, and Zan relaxed back into his chair, breathing hard. Liz hurried over, cutting the ropes off his arms and legs.

Zan swallowed, gasping in another breath. "The hell was that?!"

Liz ignored him. The blood running from his ears told her his ear-drums had broken; he wouldn't hear anything she had to say. Instead, she slid around in front of him and said, with exaggerated mouth-movements, "Can you heal?"

Zan stared, blinked. Shook his head. When he talked again, the intensity in his tone had eased, but he was still shouting even though she could hear him fine in the now silent room. "They put up some kind of a field thing!"

Liz blinked, looked around, then turned back and looked Zan in the eye. "Where?"

He nodded toward where Nik had been, and Liz hurried over toward the ashes. Every Husk came with a certain set of clothing – why, Liz didn't have the faintest freaking idea – and that clothing would disintegrate along with the body, whether or not the Husk was wearing it at the time. She stuck her hands into the pile of ash (trying hard not to think what it actually was) until her fingers wrapped around the familiar shape of the amplifier. She hit the button and headed back over. "Try it now."

Zan closed his eyes, and after a worrying amount of time opened them and smiled. He spoke normally, this time, if you excluded the slight nasal quality that came from talking with a broken nose. "It's working."

"Then _please_ finish healing yourself and get up." Liz said sharply, making her way toward the door. "We have to get out of here as quickly as possible. I'm not going to last much longer."

"Huh?" Zan muttered, nose visibly sliding back into place as he pushed himself to his feet. "The hell's _that _supposed to mean?"

"The timeline's changing." Liz said breathlessly, peaking out into the hallway. Nobody there – good. "Zan, which way should we go?"

Zan blinked, then glanced around, eyes going unfocused as he reached out with his mind. After a second of silence, he pointed off to her right. "That way, but we gotta avoid the third hallway on the left – there's a couple of guys up that way. What d'you mean, the timeline's changed? Is that, like – "

Liz kept going when he stopped, and it took her a couple of seconds to realize he'd stopped moving. She turned back, more than a little annoyed, and snapped. "Zan, move! We don't have time for this!"

"You told me you'd disappear." Zan muttered, staying in place and glaring at her. "Did you mean that, like… _literally_?"

Liz briefly considered snapping something sarcastic back, but despite her desperation to get Zan out of this crap hole and headed toward Roswell as quickly as possible, she couldn't do it. She couldn't muster that kind of a bitchiness while he was staring at her like she'd just punched him in the gut. "Yeah, Zan. I did."

Zan glared suspiciously, obviously not really believing her. But the longer he looked at her face, the longer they stood there in silence, the more suspicion bled into horror.

The buzzing swelled, and it _hurt._

"Zan, _please_! We have to go!" Liz bit her lip. "I don't have a lot of time left, here."

Zan didn't seem to hear her at first – he just kept staring at her. Then he took a slow step forward, and another and another, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. He reached even with her, looking her in the eye, face-to-face. A long moment passed before he suddenly grabbed her wrist and took off running down the hall.

Liz stumbled after him, hating her knees and her head and the buzzing of her skin. She could feel it coming, now, quicker and quicker every second.

_Fuck fuck fuck_… Liz swallowed. _God, I'm not ready for this. I don't want to disappear!_

Liz lost track of her surroundings. She thought of everything she hadn't gotten around to teaching Zan yet, everything she wanted to say. Hell, only now when it was too late, she realized there were a dozen other things she could do that might help him. A dozen other secrets maybe she should've put in the journals, but hadn't. A thousand things she'd never, ever be able to do now.

It wasn't dying – not really.

But it felt like it.

The cold night air hit her in the face, and with a start Liz realized they were already outside. Zan started heading towards the gate, but Liz tugged him in the direction of the van. It was a shitty van, yeah, but they needed some way of getting places. Or… well, he did, anyway.

Liz felt her eyes well up.

_Cut it out_, she snapped silently at herself. _You don't have enough time to flip out right now! You've got minutes left, here, Parker. Make 'em count. _

Liz ignored her knees and kept running, and when the fence appeared in front of her she used her mind to rip open a space large enough to duck through. In the distance, an alarm sounded – apparently there's been something in the fence set to warn them if someone broke in. It didn't really matter now; they'd be long gone by the time whoever was in there figured out what had happened.

She saw the van and almost made for the driver's seat, then realized last second how stupid that would be. Instead, she shoved Zan in that direction and dashed over to the passenger's side, jumping in as quickly as possible.

"How…" Zan swallowed as he got in, making no move to start the van. Liz reached over him and turned the key – she'd left it in the ignition to make the getaway quicker. Zan glanced at her, then put the van into drive. She pointed back the way she'd come from, and he silently turned the wheel in that direction. "I mean, when're you… How long do you have?"

His voice sounded strained, and Liz focused in on his expression. His jaw was clenched, and his shoulders were so tense they were almost up to his ears. He wasn't looking at her, but she could tell by the faint sheen of moisture in his eyes that he was close to crying.

"I've got a few minutes, maybe."

Zan's eyes darted to her, brows furrowing as he bit back some sharp-sounding word. Liz bit her lip, putting everything she had into not breaking down.

"Zan, there's some things I have to tell you." Liz said, voice catching. "I need you to just listen, and not say anything until I'm done."

Zan took a deep, shaky breath and nodded without looking in her direction.

"After… after I'm gone, you need to go back to the hotel and get the journals. There's information in there that could do a lot of damage if the wrong people had it. Then I need you to bring those journals to Roswell, and teach Max, Michael, and Isabel as much as you can so that they'll be ready when Kivar comes – because he _is_ coming, Zan. I don't know why, but it's happened twice now, and it's _going_ to happen again.

"And… there's a boy there, in Roswell, named Alex. He's been mind-warped by their Ava so often it's done something to his brain, and I need you to heal him as quickly as possible, okay? And… and watch out for Tess, because even after everything I've taught you, she's still stronger than you are right now. You need to be smart about it – you need to hide that you know what she's up to until you're sure you're ready, okay? And… and you need to keep training. Keep practicing…"

Liz swallowed and ran one shaking hand through her matted hair, trying desperately to think of anything else he should know.

"Trust your instincts, okay? You're strong, and you're smart, and so long as you remember everything I taught you, so long as you know your weaknesses and your advantages and… and you don't give up, you'll… you'll be okay."

Zan's hands gripped the steering wheel so tight the fabric casing groaned. The sound seemed to break the dam, and the tears started sliding down his cheeks.

"Don't go." He said shakily, eyes still fixed on the road in front of him. "I need you. I… I don't have anybody else, y'know? How am I supposed to do this without you?"

Liz stared, the pain on his face undoing all the effort she'd put in to keep from crying. Feeling helpless and scared and more connected to this man than she ever had before, she leaned over and wrapped her arms around him in a desperate hug. He shuddered against her, shoulders shaking but making no sounds.

"You won't be alone, Zan." She whispered, leaning back but not letting go. "They'll love you – I know it. They'll see all the courage and the conviction and that pain-in-the-ass temper of yours and they'll know what I know. They'll know you're a great guy, and an amazing friend, and that there's nobody else in the world they'd rather have at their back."

Zan glanced at her, face twisting in a mix of grief and anger, tears and angry red smeared across his cheeks. "This isn't fuckin' fair."

"I know." Liz cried, pulling close and burying her head into the warm of his shoulder. "But I'll tell you one thing, Zan. If I could go back and stop myself from doing any of this, from saving you and changing the timeline…. There's not a damn thing I'd change."

The buzzing – already practically visible – suddenly jumped again, swelling in skin and muscle and bone alike. Liz bit her lip and leaned in, pressing her lips against the corner of his mouth just as the vibration hit a crescendo.

"I'll be with you, Zan." She whispered.

And then, without a sound, she faded into nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> … Yeah. I know. I'm a terrible person. But this isn't over yet! Read the epilogue before you give up on me. It'll be up soon (hopefully), and it may just give you some hope.

Some explanations for this chapter. One: the reason Liz took so long to disappear is because she's been in the past a lot longer. Two: she's feeling the 'buzzing' because she's slowly falling out of alignment with this timeline – which Future-Max may or may not have been able to feel. We don't know, so call it artistic license on my part. Three: Zan learning so quickly is actually canon. Remember the shield thing with Max, and how it just sorta... happened? Yeah. I'm assuming he could do that because he could in his last life, and some part of him _remembers_. And since Zan remembers a lot more than Max, I'm assuming he can figure out even more things, and probably quicker. For the moment, anyway.

Also, to clarify – Selena's bodyguards weren't Skins. I don't know if I had one of the characters assume that or not, but they aren't.


	23. Epilogue

**Summary**: Fourteen years after Future-Max changed the past, Liz Parker's about to do it again. But when things don't go as she expected, how's she supposed to make a better future with only the help of a bitter teenage Zan?

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Liz Parker, Zan, or any of the other characters of the TV show (and book series) Roswell.

**AN**: Oh, wow. Um. Sorry I took so long, but I do have good reasons. At first I wanted to wait (even though this was already written) until I had some of the sequel perfected before I posted this, so I could post the first chapter of the sequel at the same time (which I did). Then I had a funeral to get through, as well as all the emotional havoc that implies. But it's done now, and my need for an escape helped me to remake the sequel so that I like it even better, so… yay, silver lining.

Anyway, enjoy. Well, not really, cause it's pretty sad, but you know what I mean.

* * *

><p>Zan slammed the breaks, something in the back hitting his seat hard. He spun, pointlessly searching for Beth. He knew she was gone; he'd felt her body disappear – not 'pull away', not 'move', but just <em>fade <em>from where she'd been like some kind of fucked up magic trick. He looked anyway, though, and when he couldn't find her he put his head down on the steering wheel and screamed.

It was something basic and primal, the kind of sound he hadn't really known he could make. The sound flipped a switch he hadn't known was there, and instantly he found himself pushing the accelerator to the floor despite the blurriness of his vision. He held it there as he sped off, tears streaming down his face as he hissed a dozen half-formed insults at the world in general. His hands strangled the steering wheel, but the minor violence did almost nothing to ease the ache in his chest.

It was only when the tears had dried up and the exhaustion hit him that he pulled his foot up and let the car slow to the speed limit. He drove in a haze, quiet and still, his mind empty of everything but the strange heaviness of it all. He didn't think, and he didn't cry, and if anyone asked him afterwards to tell them what that drive was like, he wouldn't be able to recall.

When he pulled into the hotel, the sun was just beginning to rise and both their van and their room still stood open. It seemed strange to him that this should happen _now_ – that the sun would be rising when the world had been ripped out from under him. He watched it for a moment, the hazy yellow and pink lighting up the horizon, coating the corners of the clouds…

Had Beth liked sunrises? Zan had never actually asked; he'd always been still sleeping at this time of day, so he didn't even know whether she got up early enough to see it. He thought she might've – it seemed like her kind of thing, somehow. But he didn't know, and couldn't ask now.

Zan's jaw squeezed. He hated how still it was. How quiet.

He stumbled out of the van, limbs dragging at him and head throbbing. He didn't get why people said that shit about crying being therapeutic. It wasn't _therapeutic_, it left you groggy and empty and still fuckin' sad. The only difference was that you _knew_ crying wouldn't help, which left you one step worse off than you ever had been before, and ashamed at the weakness to boot.

He closed the door without looking – or tried to, but something got in the way. Zan glanced back and went still, not really understanding what he was looking at for a moment.

There was a hand sticking out of the door.

Zan blinked, glancing through the gap behind the front seat to see not one, but _three _dead bodies in the back of the van. Jenny and the two dicks she'd brought with her.

Zan stared, suddenly realizing just what it was that'd rolled into his seat before. If he handled this wrong – if he got caught on camera leaving this van, or if somebody saw him – he would be put up as a suspect for their murder. After everything he'd just gone through, after everything that'd happened to him in the past half a year, he could actually be put into the system for killing Jenny and her little stooges.

The urge to scream and cry hit him again, but it passed quickly. Instead, he snorted and started laughing, stuck on the ridiculousness of his life and how completely fucked up it had become. His sister and best friend had tried to kill him, the time-traveling widow of his clone had saved him, his sister killed Rath, tried to kill Zan again, and then the woman who'd saved his life – who'd become the only person Zan had ever really been able to trust – had literally vanished.

Zan laughed so hard his stomach hurt and his throat ached and his eyes watered. He laughed so hard he cried. And then, feeling like an idiot, he got back into the van and drove it to the end of the street, where a vacant lot sat unwatched. He drove the van into the middle of it, left the keys, and then got out and put his hand flat against the grass.

The mud shifted and rippled, and the van slowly sank into the ground until nothing of it was left visible. Another tweak of his abilities and the ground solidified again, nothing but a patch of life-less dirt in the middle of the weeds to show anything was different.

_Zan, there's some things I have to tell you._

Zan looked up at the still-shadowed sky, swallowing back something poisonous. Whether it was resentment or more tears he didn't know, but he didn't think he could handle either one right now. He wasn't the crying type, and he'd done more of that in the last half-year than he had in his entire lifetime.

Either of them.

_Trust your instincts, okay? You're strong, and you're smart, and so long as you remember everything I taught you, so long as you know your weaknesses and your advantages and… and you don't give up, you'll… you'll be okay_

There was so much he still wanted to ask her. He wanted to know what he should do, how he should get ready… and what made her so damn sure his instincts were worth anything. If his instincts were so great, how'd he miss what was happening with Rath and Lonnie? How'd he let himself forget about how Beth had said she'd disappear – how'd he not pick up on what it meant? How'd he get caught so completely unaware?

She was all he had, now. His only family.

How'd he let himself believe it could last?

_They'll love you – I know it. They'll see all the courage and the conviction and that pain-in-the-ass temper of yours and they'll know what I know. They'll know you're a great guy, and an amazing friend, and that there's nobody else in the world they'd rather have at their back. _

Zan shook his head. He didn't give a shit what those idiots in Roswell thought. He didn't know them, he didn't care about them, and he wouldn't be doing shit to help them if he hadn't promised Beth. He didn't care if they liked him or loved him or hated his fucking guts. They weren't family.

They weren't Beth.

Not even the one that was.

_But I'll tell you one thing, Zan. If I could go back and stop myself from doing any of this, from saving you and changing the timeline…. There's not a damn thing I'd change._

Against his will, Zan's eyes teared up again. He wasn't stupid. He'd seen the fear on Beth's face before she disappeared; he'd seen the wild, desperate look in her eyes. She hadn't wanted to disappear. She'd been afraid – fuck, she'd been _terrified_.

And she'd still told him there was nothing she would change. That she wouldn't have let him rot on the asphalt in Chinatown if it meant she wouldn't have to disappear. That she'd rather be erased from existence than go back and let him die.

He didn't know if he could believe it. If he could _let_ himself believe it. He'd been through so much shit already, how much more would it hurt to actually accept that she cared about his life more than her own, and then to find out it wasn't true again? To find out the way he'd found out with Lonnie and Rath?

Except, really… there was no room for doubting this. Beth hadn't just said she'd die for him.

She'd actually done it.

Zan turned back towards the hotel and immediately stumbled backwards in shock, heel hitting a rut in the ground and sending him sprawling on his ass.

"B… Beth?"

She smirked down at him from the entrance to the lot, and then crouched down until she was eye-to-eye with him, pink-streaks bobbing with the motion. "Expecting someone else?"

Mind blank and mouth gaping, Zan didn't respond. Beth snorted, then laughed and sat down cross-legged on the dirt in front of him, sending him the tilted, skeptical look she'd given him every time he'd had a problem learning something new.

Zan reached out and ran his fingers down her cheek, not really paying attention to the way her eyes widened in surprise. He could _feel _her; warm, smooth, and _solid. _She leaned back, looking at him like he'd lost his mind, and he launched himself at her, wrapping her up in his arms and shaking.

"You… you disappeared."

She went still and, after a moment, wrapped her own arms around him. "Yeah, I did."

Zan shook his head, leaning back and grabbing her shoulders, holding her still so he could look her straight in the eye. She didn't fight him – she just stared back, wide eyes darkly solemn. "Then how – how are you _not_, y'know… gone?"

"Oh, Zan…" She stared at him a second, then smiled sadly. Her hands came up and cupped his face. "I _am_ gone."

Zan blinked, then shook his head a little frantically. "No. No – I can _feel _you –"

"Zan." She cut him off, sad smile touching on sardonic. "You're a telepathic alien who can move things with his mind. You can feel me because you _want _to feel me. That's all."

"You're not…" Zan started, voice losing strength as the stupid, painful hope bled away. "Real."

She smiled, gently pulling away and pushing herself up onto her feet. She offered him her hand, but he ignored it, looking at the ground for a moment before standing up rigidly. She frowned at him, but followed just behind as he headed for the hotel. "Depends on your definition, I guess."

Zan snarled. "Beth _disappeared_, and you're just a hallucination – my brain messing with me to make this whole fucking experience complete. You know _another_ definition?"

Beth took a few quick steps to get in front of him, then turned and walked backwards so she could look him in the face. He ignored her – or tried to, anyway. Pissed off as this… this whole thing made him, he had a hard time looking at her and not falling apart. "I told you I'd be with you, didn't I? Maybe this is just my way of doing that."

Zan scoffed and cast her a disbelieving glance. "So, what? Your haunting me now? That's just fucking _perfect_."

"Cut it out." She snapped.

Zan stumbled, frozen by the familiar reprimand in that voice even under these conditions. He turned a glare on the figure beside him, and she glared right back at him, the look so nostalgic and unexpected that it made him blanch. He turned away, unwilling to deal with it, and she sighed.

"You want me here, Zan." She said quietly, leaning so that she could see his face again. Zan tried to look away, but she caught his face and pulled him back. When he met her eyes, she smiled. "It's okay to need people sometimes, you know. Even if they aren't there. Maybe especially if they aren't."

Zan stared down at her, remembering her last moments. Remembering everything else. Before Beth, nobody had ever even tried to take care of him. Nobody helped him, or cleaned up after him, or tried to protect him. He'd done that for other people, and then those people had thrown it in his face and left him to die.

Beth… Beth was the kind of family he hadn't had since Antar.

He sighed and let his eyes drift closed. He ignored his anger, his bitterness and his logic, and just let himself feel her hand on his cheek and believe it was real.

"You may not believe me, Zan," Beth whispered, and Zan opened his eyes to see her smiling again. She brushed her thumb over his cheekbone and dropped her hand with a grin. "I came here to save you, and I'm not leaving until I know the job is done."

Zan stared at her for a second, and then, reluctantly, smiled. "I am out of my friggin' mind."

Beth snorted, grabbing his arm and pulling him back towards the hotel.

"Yeah, well. That's nothing new, is it?"

* * *

><p><em>"So, finally, I left. He was losing it! I mean, you could totally see it in his eyes – he was on the way out of this life." Jerry was recounting to a big group of fascinated people, eyes glittering and a little smile on his face. It made her furious how excited he was, getting so much attention for telling people such… such <em>lies_. _

_ "Is that a fact." She snapped, watching as a circle of heads all swiveled in her direction. Jerry's smile dropped, his eyes went wide, and his skin even paled a little. He stared at her like she was a ghost, or a serial killer, or his mother having just walked in on him watching porn. _

_ "Uh –" he grunts, glancing at his audience nervously. _

_ Liz looked around at all the people, now looking down at the ground, shame faced. They _should_ feel ashamed; sitting here, listening to this guy talk about her friend – her dead friend – like his last minutes were some kind of tabloid story they could pick apart and spread around. They turned and left, one by one, leaving her and Jerry in the middle of the football field. _

_ "I'd like to ask you some questions. If you have the time." Liz sneered, leaving the obvious dig at his pathetic gossiping unsaid, but not unacknowledged. She didn't wait for him to answer before continuing, either. "You talked to Alex after we left the day that he died." _

_ Jerry bobbed his head, not looking at her. "Yeah."_

_ "What happened when you got to the door?" She said, making sure to keep her voice even and clear. It was hard, because she wanted to scream – she wanted to hit him, to beat the crap out him right here where everybody could see, but she wouldn't get her answers like that. And the answers meant more than this asshole ever could. _

_Alex, and the truth about what happened to him, meant more. _

_ "Like… the usual stuff, I guess." He muttered, turning away from her and glancing around – presumably to see who was watching._

_ "What usual stuff?" She snapped. _

_ "Like, he nodded and took his food. Seemed pretty normal at first. Said the food was cold." Jerry started pacing in a semi circle, walking to one side of her then looping back around. Liz turned, keeping him fixed in her sight. She didn't bother to blink or try and soften her expression. A little discomfort might push him to say more than he would otherwise._

_ "And then what did he say?"_

_ "I don't know. I mean, life isn't right, or… life is wrong. Something like that." _

_ Liz stares at the ground, taking this in. What could it mean? Why would he say that, in specific? It sounded like something was going on – something was bothering him, or hurting him. Something big, that none of them had seen. _

_Something he'd let Jerry get a glimpse of. _

_Liz glared at him. "Yeah, and then what did _you_ say?"_

_ "Well, I said –" he started, voice sharp and annoyed. But then he looked at her face, and something about it stopped him from saying the first thing that came to mind. He looked away, shrugged. "Whatever, dude!" He finishes, sounding defensively sharp. _

_ "Whatever, dude?" Liz imagined that – imagined seeing a guy like Alex, so obviously troubled, so obviously in pain. And instead of asking what's going on, if he's okay or if there's any way he could help, Jerry had said that? "That's your reaction to a man who is devastated and 'on his way out of this life'?" _

_ Jerry flinched and turned a weak glare in her direction. _

_ "Isn't that how you described him to your little fan club?" She snarled. _

_ "Look, I wasn't –" Jerry cut himself off, glanced away again. Then he forced himself to look back at her, face seeming –for the moment, at least – genuinely apologetic. "I mean, I… I'm sorry it sounded like that." _

_ "Yeah." Liz spits. _I bet you are, you son of a bitch.

_There was more she wanted to say to him, but there were other things to look into, other people to ask about Alex, so she cut herself off and finished with, "If you remember anything else – _anything_… my parents own the Crashdown. You can usually find me there." _

_ She walked away, pulling the picture out of her pocket as she went. Already the edges were bending, already there was a little watermark on the bottom corner from where it had caught one of her tears. But somebody had _cut_ Alex out of this picture; somebody had cut off the corner with his face, then put the picture in the car. And that _meant _something – it_ had _to mean something… and she was going to find out what. _

_She would do it, even if it killed her. _

Liz woke slowly, neck pulsing from having slept on it wrong. She brought a hand up to her face and found it wet with tears. She groaned and sat up, bringing both hands up to rub her face.

After taking a moment to let the grief and fury fade with the dream, Liz pulled herself out of bed and got ready for the day. She and Maria were going to go hang out with Alex for a while, then go out for lunch together. Everybody had plans to head over to the Crashdown later to discuss their plans for prom; she already knew everybody was planning to take little disposable cameras so that they could put a bunch of little scrap books together afterwards. It had been Isabel and Maria's idea, but Liz and Tess had loved it and the guys hadn't minded an excuse to relax and eat free food.

The memory of the dream receded to the back of her mind.

Not gone.

Waiting.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Okay! So. Should have posted the first chapter of the sequel after this: working title is Time and Again: Variable Z. Also, I have some plans to edit the chapter with Tess - I'll tell you in the sequel when I've done it.


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